
y^--' ..>^ 




From a photograph tahm in Germany at the time when he >ra.^ Conxnl at ' 
trejeld. He inscribed this " The Herr Consul/' (('/nr( 1880.) 



IFrontisjricce. 



THE LIFE OF 

BRET HARTE 



BY 



T. EDGAR PEMBERTON 

AUTHOR OF "THE KENDALS;" "ELLEN TERRY AND HER SISTERS; 

"A MEMOIR OF E. A. SOTHERN ; " "THE LIFE AN1> WRITIN8S 

OF T. W. ROBERTSON;" "CHARLES DICKENS AND 

THE STAGE;" "JOHN HARE, COMEDIAN;" 

ETC. ETC. ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & CO. 

1903 






03 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

BOYHOOD: 'FLOUNDERING" i 



CHAPTER II 

FIRST FLIGHTS : " STRUGGLING " 9 

CHAPTER III 

IN LIFE'S STREAM: "SWIMMING" 68 

CHAPTER IV 
FROM PACIFIC TO ATLANTIC SHORES . . . .117 

CHAPTER V 
FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD . . . .152 

CHAPTER VI 
THE CONSUL 167 

CHAPTER VII 

IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 257 

V 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 



PAOB 

LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS, AND LATER WORK . 296 



CHAPTER IX 

"GROSSING THE BAR" 338 

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . 346 

INDEX 355 



VI 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Bret Harte when Consul at Crefeld 

Bret Harte when 17 Years Old 
(From a daguerrotype) 

Map of Bret Harte's California 

The " Overland Monthly " 

San Francisco, 1850-51 

The Home of "Truthful James" 

Bret Harte (circa 1871) 

Bret Harte (circa 1876) 

Bret Harte .... 

(From the original painting by John Pkttik, R.A.) 

Bret Harte (crrca 1899) 

The Red House, Camberley, Surrey 

Bret Harte's Writing Table at Camberley 
AND HIS Library at Lancaster Gate, 
London ....... 

Frimley Church 

Bret Harte's Grave in Frimley Churchyard. 
Specimens of Bret Harte's Writing 



Frontispiece 

To face page 3 2 



M )) 



)5 )) 



>5 I) 



>> )> 



» J) 



64 

82 

102 

I 10 

126 

170 

208 
260 



» >J 



312 
328 



Vll 



THE LIFE OF BEET HAETE 

CHAPTEH I 

BOYHOOD : " FLOUNDERING " 

Francis Bret Harte, one of America's greatest 
literary sons, poets, and humorists — the pioneer of 
the short story that in these days of rush is in even 
greater demand than the popular but more diffusive 
novel, was born at Albany, State of New York, on 
August 25th, 1839. His father, a well-known scholar 
and eminent man of letters, was Professor of Greek at 
the Albany College, and thus the child was brought 
up in the atmosphere of literature. But he was 
weakly ; when they spoke of his health prospects, 
doctors shook their heads, and when he reached the 
age when education had to be thought of, his kindly 
mother (her maiden name was Truesdale) begged that 
he might not be " forced." His father superintended 
his studies, but probably hardly knew how that active 
little brain — stronger than the as yet delicate body — 
panted for knowledge. 

Thus it came about that the young but fragile 
Bret Harte had plenty of time on his own hands, 
and as will presently be seen he used it to good advan- 



BOYHOOD: 

tage. His name Bret was the surname of his father's 
mother ; in later years he completely dropped the 
Francis ; it was as Bret Harte that he endeared him- 
self to the reading world, and it is by that familiar 
title he will be called in these pages. He has de- 
scribed himself to me as a dreamy lad thirsting for 
information concerning the world he lived in, and 
naturally his first interest was in his environment. 

He found plenty to engross his thoughts in this 
city of Albany, the capital of the State of New York, 
and of the county of Albany, picturesquely situated in 
a beautiful and fertile country on the western banks of 
the Hudson. At Albany the united Erie and Champ- 
lain canals join the Hudson, and the boy loved to go 
down to the port, to count the vessels that touched 
there, and to hear about the enormous quantities of 
timber, wheat, barley, wool, and tobacco, which con- 
stantly passed through the busy city. 

There was much to be wondered at, too, at the 
College in which his father taught and lectured, and 
the stores of learning to be gleaned within those 
honoured walls ; but his greatest delight was in the 
history of his birthplace. 

He soon found out how Albany was founded by 
the Dutch in 1623, and was thus the oldest European 
settlement in the United States, with the exception 
of Jamestown in Virginia, which dates from 1607. It 
stirred his young blood, moreover, to find how it was 
captured by the British in 1664, who changed its 
name from Beaverwyck or Williamstadt in honour of 
the Duke of York and Albany, and how it received ! 

2 



"FLOUNDERING" 

its charter in 1686, and became the capital of the 
State of New York in 1797. 

Then he had his unformed conjectures as to the im- 
pressive Roman Cathohc Cathedral, and wondered why, 
while his father was a constant attendant at its shrine, 
his mother preferred one of the Protestant churches. 

In his boyish mind the busy city became a wonder- 
land, and within its precincts he conjured up many 
fairy-like fancies. 

I am bound to say, however, that in telling me all 
these things he added, in his whimsical way, that 
when, after an absence of many years, he, in the first 
flush of his literary fame, revisited Albany to deliver 
one of his admirable lectures before the literary society 
that in far-off days his father had founded, and expected 
to respond to a great thrill of enthusiasm coupled with 
emotion, he felt a keen pang of disappointment, and 
'was angry with himself for being disappointed. The 
thrill that he had expected did not answer to his call. 

He described it very pathetically but with a sense 
of humour that was irresistible, and declared his 
belief that all sensitive-minded people have undergone 
the same doleful experience. 

I think he was right. The eyes of childhood 
magnify the Vjeauties of their earliest surroundings. 

In those boyish, dreamy days of his he must have 
found abundant time for reading. His keen love of 
romance and poetry, and his intense sense of humour 
soon made themselves manifest, and no doubt some of 
his most delightful hours were spent in bookland. 

His admiration for Charles Dickens, which never 
waned, but, on the contrary, increased as the years 

3 



BOYHOOD: 

rolled by, began when he read "Dombey and Son," 
as the novel first came out in monthly parts. This 
was in 1846, when he was only seven years of age, 
and he at once made himself master of the glorious 
works from the same pen which had preceded it. 

When he told me this I suggested that he was 
not unlike Dickens's David Copperfield, and I 
recalled to him the lines (was it not Dickens writing 
of his own boyhood ?) : " My father had left a small 
collection of books in a little room upstairs to which 
I had access, and which nobody else in our house ever 
troubled. From that blessed little room ' Roderick 
Random,' ' Peregrine Pickle,' ' Humphrey Clinker,' 
' Tom Jones,' ' The Vicar of Wakefield,' ' Don Quixote,' 
' Gil Bias,' and ' Robinson Crusoe ' came out, a glorious 
host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, 
and something beyond that place and time — they, and 
the ' Arabian Nights,' and the ' Tales of the Genii ' — 
and did me no harm, for whatever harm was in some 
of them was not there for me ; I knew nothing of it. 
It is astonishing to me now how I found time, in the 
midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier 
themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious 
to me how I could ever have consoled myself under 
my small troubles (which were great troubles to me) 
by impersonating my favourite characters in them. 
... I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a 
harmless creature) for a week together. I have sus- 
tained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month 
at a stretch I verily believe. I had a greedy relish 
for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels — I forget 

4 



"FLOUNDERING" 

what now — that were on those shelves ; and for days 
and days I can remember to have gone about my 
region of our house armed with the centrepiece out 
of an old set of boot-trees — the perfect realisation of 
Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in 
danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell 
his life at a great price. The captain never lost 
dignity from having his ears boxed with the Latin 
Grammar. I did ; but the captain was a captain and 
a hero, in spite of all the grammars of all the lan- 
guages in the world, dead or alive. . . . Every barn 
in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and 
every foot of the churchyard, had some association of 
its own in my mind connected with these books, and 
stood for some locality made famous in them. I have 
seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple ; I 
have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, 
stopping to rest himself on the wicket-gate, and I 
know that Commodore Trunnion held that club with 
Mr. Pickle in the parlour of our little village alehouse." 
" Yes," said Bret Harte, " that is so : all the books 
were there ; the avidity to read them was there, and 
the ideas to which they gave birth were there ; but 
my lines were cast in more pleasant places than those 
of poor little David. I had access to any number of 
books, and, owing to my supposed frail health, my 
ears were never boxed with the Latin Grammar. 
Besides," he added, " in addition to Smollett, Fielding, 
Goldsmith, Cervantes, and the rest of them, the irre- 
sistible Dickens was beginning to make a good show 
on my father's bookshelves." 

5 



BOYHOOD: 

Bret Harte always felt that he owed a deep debt 
of gratitude to Charles Dickens, and, as we shall see 
in the course of these pages, the time came when he 
was able to pay it back in that coin which the great 
English novelist would have loved to possess. 

Being thus brought up — well grounded in classic 
lore by his father — and left much to himself for his 
sources of amusement, it is no wonder that the earnest 
and romantic boy soon felt that there was a burden 
on his heart and a message in his pen. At the tender 
age of eleven he had written a poem called "Autumn 
Musings." It was satirical in character, and cast upon 
the fading year the cynical light of his then repressed 
dissatisfaction (not an unusual ailment in sensitive 
childhood) with things in general. He sent it surrep- 
titiously to the New York Sunday Atlas ^ and to his 
immense astonishment but absolute delight it appeared 
in all the glory of published print. 

Alas ! his joy was destined to be short - lived. 
When he proudly told his home circle of his effort 
and his triumph he was laughed at, and his poor 
poetry was saturated with a douche of cold water. ! 
Under this shock he was grief-stricken. " Sometimes," 
he has said, " I wonder that I ever wrote another line 
of verse." 

It is a curious thing that young people are gene- 
rally laughed at when they make any effort in the 
direction of authorship. No doubt it is better that 
young folk should be advised not to consider them- 
selves among the few heaven-born geniuses who from 

time to time are sent to illuminate our world ; but 

6 



"FLOUNDERING" 

advice may go too far, and derision on such occasions 
is absolutely cruel. The child who is really likely to 
make a mark in the literary world is generally super- 
sensitive, and is prone to feel a rebuff far more keenly 
than his more matter-of-fact brothers and sisters. 
In many family circles, too, there is a tradition to the 
effect that it is exceedingly unlikely that a boy 
should rise to the position of his father. In such 
households the bare idea that he should ever emulate 
the wisdom of an octogenarian grandfather who has 
died in his dotage would be regarded not only as an 
impertinence but an outrage. Happy are the fathers 
and mothers who quickly grasp the fact that they 
have son or daughter endowed with a greater number 
of talents than their own. Fortunate are the children 
whose parents resolve to show them how those talents 
instead of being hidden in a napkin must assuredly 
be multiplied. 

I fear poor little Bret Harte suffered over his 
" Autumn Musings." " Sometimes I wonder that I 
ever wrote another line of verse ! " Those are sad 
words for the author of so many beautiful poems to 
have uttered. Happily as the years rolled on he took 
heart of grace and has left the world a priceless 
legacy of poetry which is ever doing its good work. 

In one of his earliest efforts — " The Lost Galleon " 
— he wrote : — 

" Never a tear bedims the eye 
That time and patience will not dry ; 
Never a lip is curved with pain 
That can't be kissed into smiles again." 

7 



BOYHOOD 

Many tear-laden eyes, many quivering lips have 
been soothed by the verses of Bret Harte. They 
have done more than this. They have brought the 
tear and the lip tremble to thousands of readers who 
have felt their chastening influence and thus been 
softened. 

But though time and patience dried his eyes and 
brought joy into his face, the all too bold author of 
" Autumn Musings " never forgot that first family 
rebuff. I think it had something to do with the 
fact that, unique though his literary work was, he 
always disliked writing, and only plied his pen 
because he had found in authorship his true vocation. 
To the last he protested he would rather earn his 
income in any other way. 

In the days of his childhood's "Musings" he of 
course longed for literary fame, but even at a very 
early age he resolved to have some profession or craft 
at his fingers' ends that would make him independent 
of his well-loved pen as a means of livelihood. 

Hence the many youthful enterprises to be re- 
corded in these pages, and his acceptance in later 
years of editorial and political posts ; for though he 
never had an article refused by an editor or publisher, 
he lacked the self-confidence which in the case of 
hundreds is unimpaired by constant disappointment. 
He maintained that this rule had its good influence 
on his work, inasmuch as it had given him liberty to 
write to please himself, instead of working " to order," 
and in accordance with the views of the purchaser of 
his productions. 

8 



CHAPTER II 

FIRST FLIGHTS: "STRUGGLING" 

All too early Bret Harte's father died, and at the 
age of seventeen he resolved to go West in quest of 
the adventure and research for which his soul longed. 
He did not leave home without the sympathy of his 
mother, relatives, and friends, and he was by no means 
disconsolate when as a mere lad he found himself in 
San Francisco. 

During recent years he was often asked why he 
did not write his autobiography. To this suggestion 
he always shook his head ; but to his very intimate 
friends it was evident that the idea had taken posses- 
sion of his mind, and in some of his latest stories the 
things that he was in the habit of talking about to 
those who took an affectionate interest in his earliest 
doings had an odd way of peeping out. 

His paper entitled " Bohemian Days in San Fran- 
cisco " was such a reflex of the stories he told me as 
we strolled about gardens and country lanes in the 
summer or sat in -the ingle nook in the winter, that I 
shall not hesitate to quote from it here. 

Of course he spoke of the San Francisco as he 
found it when he first went to seek his fortune there 
in 1856. 

" I do not," he said, " allude to the brief days of 

9 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

1849, when it was a straggling beach of huts and 
stranded hulks, but to the earlier stages of its de- 
velopment into the metropolis of California. Its first 
tottering steps in that direction were marked by a 
distinct gravity and decorum. Even during the 
period when the revolver settled small private diffi- 
culties, and Vigilance Committees adjudicated larger 
public ones, an unmistakable seriousness and respecta- 
bility was the ruling sign of its governing class. It 
was not improbable that under the reign of the Com- 
mittee the lawless and vicious class were more appalled 
by the moral spectacle of several thousand black-coated, 
serious-minded business men in embattled procession 
than by mere force of arms ; and one ' suspect ' — a 
prize-fighter — is known to have committed suicide in 
his cell after confrontation with his grave and passion- 
less shop-keeping judges. Even that peculiar quality 
of Californian humour which was apt to mitigate the 
extravagances of the revolver and the uncertainties 
of poker had no place in the decorous and responsible 
utterance of San Francisco. The press was sober, 
materialistic, practical — when it was not severely 
admonitory of existing evil ; the few smaller papers 
that indulged in levity were considered libellous and 
improper. Fancy was displaced by heavy articles on 
the revenues of the State and inducements to the 
investment of capital. Local news was under an 
implied censorship which suppressed anything that 
might tend to discourage timid or cautious capital. 
Episodes of romantic lawlessness or pathetic incidents 

of mining life were carefully edited — with the com- 

10 



"STRUGGLING" 

ment that these things belonged to the past, and that 
life and property were now ' as safe in San Francisco 
as in New York or London.' " 

He used to laugh heartily over these serious San 
Francisco journals of the days of long ago, and was 
especially fond of an anecdote that told how a leading 
article dealing with one of the severer earthquakes 
declared that only the ujiexpectedness of the onset 
prevented the city from meeting it in a way that 
would be deterrent to all future attacks. 

" I had been there a week — an idle week," he 
records, " spent in listless outlook for employment ; 
a full week in my eager absorption of the strange 
life around me and a photographic sensitiveness to 
certain scenes and incidents of these days, which start 
out of my memory to-day as freshly as the day they 
impressed me. 

" One of these recollections is of ' steamer night,' 

as it was called — the night of ' steamer day ' — 

preceding the departure of the mail steamship with 

the mails for ' home.' Indeed, at that time San 

Francisco may be said to have lived from steamer day 

to steamer day ; bills were made due on that day, 

interest computed to that period, and accounts settled. 

The next day was the turning of a new leaf : another 

essay to fortune, another inspiration of energy. So 

recognised was the fact that even ordinary changes of 

condition, social and domestic, were put aside until 

after steamer day. ' I'll see what I can do after next 

steamer day,' was the common cautious or hopeful 

formula. It was the ' Saturday night ' of many a 

n 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

wage-earner, and to him a night of festivity. The 
thoroughfares were animated and crowded ; the saloons 
and the theatres full. I can recall myself at such times 
wandering along the City Front, as the business part of 
San Francisco was then called. Here the lights were 
burning all night, the first streaks of dawn finding 
the merchants still at their counting - house desks. 
I remember the dim lines of warehouses lining the 
insecure wharves of rotten piles, half filled in — that 
had ceased to be wharves but had not yet become 
streets — their treacherous yawning depths, with the 
uncertain gleam of tar-like mud below, at times still 
vocal with the lap and gurgle of the tide. I remember 
the weird stories of disappearing men found afterwards 
imbedded in the ooze in which they had fallen and 
gasped their life away. I remember the two or three 
ships, still left standing where they were beached a 
year or two before, built in between warehouses, their 
bows projecting into the roadway. There was the 
dignity of the sea and its boundless freedom in their 
beautiful curves which the abutting houses could not 
destroy, and even something of the sea's loneliness in 
the far-spaced ports and cabin windows lit up by the 
lamps of the prosaic landsmen who plied their trades 
behind them. One of these ships transformed into a 
hotel retained its name, ' The Niantic,' and part of its 
characteristic interior unchanged. I remember these 
ships' old tenants — the rats — who had increased and 
multiplied to such an extent that at night they fearlessly 
crossed the wayfarer's path at every turn, and even in- 
vaded the gilded saloons of Montgomery Street. In the 

12 



'STRUGGLING" 

' Niantic' their pit-a-pat was met on every staircase, 
and it was said that sometimes in an excess of socia- 
bility they accompanied the traveller to his room. In 
the early ' cloth and papered ' houses, so called be- 
cause the ceilings were not plastered, but simply 
covered by stretched and whitewashed cloth — their 
scamperings were plainly indicated in zigzag move- 
ments of the sagging cloth, or they became actually 
visible by finally dropping through the holes they had 
worn in it ! I remember the house whose foundations 
were made of boxes of plug tobacco — part of a jet- 
tisoned cargo — used instead of more expensive lumber ; 
and the adjacent warehouse where the trunks of the 
early and forgotten ' forty-niners ' M^ere stored, and, 
never claimed by their dead or missing owners, were 
finally sold at auction. I remember the strong breath 
of the sea over all, and the constant onset of the trade 
winds which helped to disinfect the deposit of dirt 
and grime, decay and wreckage which were stirred up 
in the later evolutions of the city." 

Truly another young David Copperfield, the proto- 
type of Charles Dickens ; but whereas poor David 
gazed at the murky Thames as it flowed by the old 
London Hungerford Market, Bret Harte pondered over 
the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean as they glided 
through the Golden Gate of California. 

Then he recalls, " with the same sense of youthful 
satisfaction and unabated wonder," his wanderings 
through the Spanish quarter, where three centuries of 
quaint customs, speech and dress were still preserved ; 
where the proverbs of Sancho Panza were still spoken 

13 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

in the language of Cervantes, and the high-flown 
illusions of the La Manchian knight still a part of the 
Spanish Californian hidalgo's dream. " I recall," he 
says, "the more modern 'Greaser' or Mexican — his 
index finger steeped in cigarette stains ; his velvet 
jacket and his crimson sash ; the many-flounced skirt 
and lace manta of his women, and their caressing 
intonations — the one musical utterance of the whole 
hard-voiced city. I suppose I had a boy's digestion 
and bluntness of taste in those days, for the combined 
odour of tobacco, burned paper, and garlic which 
marked that melodious breath did not aflect me." 

These pictures of his, conjured up after many years, 
but often referred to in his conversations with his 
intimate friends, are like a series of vivid yet softly 
dissolving views. He puts another slide into the 
magic lantern of his memory, and having brought it 
into focus, he says : — 

" Perhaps from my Puritan training I experienced 
a more fearful joy in the gambling saloons. They 
were the largest and most comfortable, even as they 
were the most expensively decorated, rooms in San 
Francisco. Here, again, the gravity and decorum 
which I have already alluded to were present at that 
earlier period, though perhaps from concentration 
of another kind. People staked and lost their last 
^dollar with a calm solemnity and a resignation that 
was almost Christian. The oaths, exclamations, and 
feverish interruptions which often characterised more 
dignified assemblies were absent here. There was 
no room for the lesser vices ; there was little or no 



STRUGGLING" 

drunkenness ; the gaudily- dressed and painted women 
who presided over the wheels of fortune or performed 
on the harp and piano attracted no attention from these 
ascetic players. The man who had won ten thousand 
dollars and the man who had lost everything rose 
from the table with equal silence and imperturbability. 
/ never witnessed any tragic sequel to those losses ; / 
never heard of any suicide on account of them. Neither 
can I recall any quarrel or murder directly attributable 
to this kind of gambling. It must be remembered that 
these public games were chiefly rouge-et-noir, monte, 
faro, or roulette, in which the antagonist was Fate, 
Chance, Method, or the impersonal ' bank,' which 
was supposed to represent them all ; there was no 
individual opposition or rivalry ; nobody challenged 
the decision of the ' croupier ' or dealer. 

" I remember a conversation at the door of one 
saloon which was as characteristic for its brevity as it 
was a type of the prevailing stoicism. ' Hello,' said 
a departing miner, as he recognised a brother miner 
coming in, ' when did you come down ? ' ' This 
morning,' was the reply. ' Made a strike at the bar ? ' 
suggested the first speaker. ' You bet ! ' said the 
other, and passed in. I chanced an hour later to be 
at the same place when they met again — their rela- 
tive positions changed. ' Hello ! Whar now ? ' said 
the incomer. ' Back to the bar.' ' Cleaned out ? ' 
' You bet ! ' Not a word more explained a common 
situation. 

" My first youthful experience at those tables was 
an accidental one. I was watching roulette one even- 

15 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

ing, intensely absorbed in the mere movement of the 

players. Either they were so preoccupied with the 

game, or I was really looking older than my actual 

years, but a bystander laid his hand familiarly on my 

shoulder, and said as to an ordinary habitue, ' Ef 

you're not chippin' in yourself, pardner, s'pose you 

give me a show.' Now I honestly believe that up to 

that moment I had no intention, nor even a desire, to 

try my own fortune. But in the embarrassment of the 

sudden address I put my hand in my pocket, drew out 

a coin, and laid it, with an attempt at carelessness, 

but a vivid consciousness that I was blushing, upon 

a vacant number. To my horror I saw that I had put 

down a large coin — the bulk of my possessions ! I did 

not flinch, however ; I think any boy who reads this 

will understand my feeling ; it was not only my coin 

but my manhood at stake. I gazed with a miserable 

show of indifference at the players, at the chandelier, 

anywhere but at the dreadful ball running round the 

wheel. There was a pause ; the game was declared, 

the rake rattled up and down, but still I did not look 

at the table. Indeed, in my inexperience of the game 

and my embarrassment, I doubt if I should have 

known if I had won or not. I had made up my mind 

that I should lose, but I must do so like a man, and, 

above all, without giving the least suspicion that I 

was a greenhorn. I even affected to be listening to 

the music. The wheel spun again ; the game was 

declared, the rake was busy, but I did not move. At 

last the man I had displaced touched me on the arm 

and whispered, ' Better make a straddle and divide 

i6 



"STRUGGLING" 

your stake this time.' I did not understand him, but 
as I saw he was looking at the board, I was obliged to 
look too. I drew back dazed and bewildered ! Where 
my coin had lain a moment before was a glittering 
heap of gold. 

" My stake had doubled, quadrupled, and doubled 
again. I did not know how much then — I do not 
know how much now — it may not have been more 
than three or four hundred dollars — but it dazzled and 
frightened me. ' Make your game, gentlemen,' said 
the croupier monotonously. I thought he looked at 
me — indeed, everybody seemed to be looking at me — 
and my companion repeated his warning. But here I 
must again appeal to the boyish reader in defence of 
my idiotic obstinacy. To have taken advice would 
have shown my youth. I shook my head : I could 
not trust my voice. I smiled, but with a sinking 
heart, and let my stake remain. The ball again^ 
sped round the wheel and stopped. There was a 
pause. The croupier indolently advanced his rake 
and swept my whole pile with others into the bank ! 
I had lost it all. Perhaps it may be difficult to ex- 
plain why I actually felt relieved, and even to some 
extent triumphant, but I seemed to have asserted 
my grown up independence — possibly at the cost of 
reducing the number of my meals for days ; but what 
of that ? I was a man ! I wish I could say that it «^ 
was a lesson to me. I am afraid it was not. It was 
true that I did not gamble again, but then I had no 
especial desire to, and there was no temptation. 
I am afraid it was an incident without a moral. Yet 

17 B 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

it had one touch characteristic of the period which I 
Hke to remember. The man who had spoken to me, I 
think, suddenly realised, at the moment of my disas- 
trous coup, the fact of my extreme youth. He moved 
towards the banker, and leaning over him whispered 
a few words. The banker looked up, half impatiently, 
half kindly — his hand straying tentatively towards the 
pile of coin. Instinctively I knew what he meant, and 
summoning up my determination, met his eyes with all 
the indifference I could assume." 

But it was the sense of such good deeds, intended 
if not actually fulfilled, in a naughty world that made 
Bret Harte feel that there might be more of good in 
the hearts of the lawless men with whom he was soon 
to mingle than had yet been dreamt of in the philo- 
sophic mind of the superior person. 

Then he gets away from the gambling saloon and 
its snares, and another mental picture is thrown upon 
the screen. 

" I had at that joeriod," he says, " a small room 

at the top of a house owned by a distant relation — 

a second or third cousin, I think. He was a man of 

independent and original character, had a Ulyssean 

experience of men and cities, and an old English 

name of which he was proud. While in London he 

had procured from the Heralds' College his family 

arms, whose crest was stamped upon a quantity of 

plate he had brought with him to California. The 

plate, together with an exceptionally good cook whom 

he had also brought, and his own epicurean tastes, 

he utilised in the usual practical Californian fashion 

i8 



'STRUGGLING" 

by starting a rather expensive half club, half restau- 
rant in the lower part of the building — which he 
ruled somewhat autocratically, as became his crest ! 
The restaurant was too expensive for me to patronise, 
but I saw many of its frequenters as well as those 
who had rooms at the club. They were men of very 
distinct personality ; a few celebrated, and nearly all 
notorious. They represented a Bohemianism — if such 
it could be called — less innocent than my later ex- 
periences. I remember, however, one handsome 
young fellow whom I used to meet occasionally on 
the staircase, who captured my youthful fancy. I 
met him only at midday, as he did not rise till late, 
and this fact, with a certain scrupulous elegance and 
neatness in his dress, ought to have made me suspect 
that he was a gambler. In my inexperience it only 
invested him with a certain romantic mystery, 

" One morning as I was going out to my very 
early breakfast at a cheap Italian cafe on Long 
Wharf, I was surprised to find him also descending 
the staircase. He was scrupulously dressed, even at 
that early hour, but I was struck by the fact that 
he was all in black, and his slight figure, buttoned 
to the throat in a tightly-fitting frock-coat, gave, I 
fancied, a singular melancholy to his pale Southern 
face. Nevertheless, he greeted me with more than 
his usual serene cordiality, and I remembered that 
he looked up with a half-puzzled, half-amused ex- 
pression at the rosy morning sky as he walked a few 
steps with me down the deserted street. I could not 
help saying that I was astonished to see him up so 

19 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

early, and he admitted that it was a break in his 
usual habits, but added with a smiling significance 
I afterwards remembered, that it was ' an even chance 
if he did it again,' As we neared the street corner 
a man in a buggy drove up impatiently. In spite 
of the driver's evident haste, my handsome acquaint- 
ance got in leisurely, and lifting his glossy hat to 
me, with a pleasant smile, was driven away. I have 
a very lasting impression of his face and figure as 
the buggy disappeared down the empty street. I 
never saw him again. It was not until a week later 
that I knew that an hour after he left me that 
morning he was lying dead in a little hollow behind 
the Mission Dolores — shot through the heart in a 
duel for which he had risen so early." 

Thus it will be seen that Bret Harte had barely 
passed his boyhood before he saw the type for his 
wonderfully limned characters, John Oakhurst and 
Jack Hamlin. And yet since his death writers have 
been bold enough to say such characters could not 
have existed. 

" I recall another incident of that period," he 
continues, " equally characteristic, but less tragic in 
sequel. I was in the restaurant one morning talking 
to my cousin, when a man entered hastily and said 
something to him in a hurried whisper. My cousin 
contracted his eyebrows and uttered a suppressed 
oath. Then with a gesture of warning to the man 
he crossed the room quietly where a regular habitue 
of the restaurant was lazily finishing his breakfast. 

A large silver cofiee-pot with a stiff wooden handle 

20 



"STRUGGLING" 

stood on the table before him. My cousin leaned 
over the guest familiarly, and apparently made some 
hospitable inquiry as to his wants. Then — possibly 
because my curiosity having been excited I was 
watching him more intently than the others — / saw 
what probably no one else saw, that he deliberately 
upset the coffee-pot and its contents over the guest's 
shirt and waistcoat. As the victim sprang up with 
an exclamation, my cousin overwhelmed him with 
apologies for his carelessness, and, with protestations 
of sorrow for the accident, actually insisted on drag- 
ging the man upstairs into his own private room, 
where he furnished him with a shirt and waistcoat 
of his own. The side door had scarcely closed upon 
them, and I was still lost in wonder at what I had 
seen, when a man entered from the street. He was 
one of the desperate set I have already spoken of, 
and thoroughly well known to those present. He 
cast a glance or two around the room, nodded to one 
or two of the guests, and then walked to a side table 
and took up a newspaper. I was conscious at once 
that a singular restraint had come over the other 
guests — a nervous awkwardness that at last seemed 
to make itself known to the man himself, who, after 
an affected yawn or two, laid down the paper and 
walked out. 

" ' That was a mighty close call,' said one of the 
guests with a sigh of relief 

'"You bet! And the coffee-pot spill was the 
luckiest kind of accident for Peters,' remarked 
another. 

21 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

" ' For both,' added the first speaker ; ' for Peters 
was armed too, and would have seen him come in ! ' 

" A word or two explained all. Peters and the 
last comer had quarrelled a day or two before," and 
ji^had separated with the intention to 'shoot on sight' 
— that is, wherever they met, a form of duel com- 
mon to those days. The accidental meeting in the 
restaurant would have been the occasion, with the 
usual sanguinary consequence, but for the word of 
warning given to my cousin by a passer-by who knew 
that Peters' antagonist was coming to the restaurant 
to look at the papers. Had my cousin repeated the 
warning to Peters himself he would only have pre- 
pared him for the conflict, which he would not have 
shirked, and so precipitated the affray. 

" The ruse of upsetting the coffee-pot, which 
everybody but myself thought an accident, was to 
get him out of the room before the other entered. 
I was too young then to venture to intrude upon my 
cousin's secrets, but two or three years afterwards I 
taxed him with the trick and he admitted it regret- 
fully. I believe that a strict interpretation of the 
' code ' would have condemned his act as unsports- 
manlike, if not unfair ! " 

Such were the strange surroundings and characters 
that filled his young mind with wonder and imagina- 
tion, and from which in later years he drew so much 
valuable material for his stories. 

He marvelled, too, at the Chinamen who at that 
time were rapidly adding to the strangely inter- 
mingled population of San Francisco. In them he 

22 



"STRUGGLING" 

found a remarkable and picturesque contrast to the 
bustling, breathless, and brand-new life of the City, 
and to the comparatively listless and procrastinating 
Spaniards. The latter seldom flaunted their faded 
dignity in the principal thoroughfares. " John " 
Chinaman was to be met everywhere. 

"It was a common thing," he said, "to see a long 
file of sampan coolies carrying their baskets slung 
between them, on poles, jostling a modern, well- 
dressed crowd in Montgomery Street, or to get a 
whiff of their burned punk in the side streets ; while 
the road leading to their temporary burial-ground at 
Lone Mountain was littered with slips of coloured 
paper scattered from their funerals. They brought 
an atmosphere of the Arabian Nights into the hard, 
modern, civilisation ; their shops — not always confined 
at that time to a Chinese quarter — were replicas of 
the bazaars of Canton and Peking, with their quaint 
displays of little dishes on which tit-bits of food 
delicacies were exposed for sale, all of the dimensions 
and unreality of a doll's kitchen or a child's house- 
keeping. They were a revelation to the Eastern 
immigrant, whose preconceived ideas of them were 
borrowed from the ballet or pantomime ; they did not 
wear scalloped drawers and hats with jingling bells 
on their points, nor did I ever see them dance with 
their forefingers vertically extended. They were 
always neatly dressed, even the commonest of coolies, 
and their festive dresses were marvels. As traders 
they were grave and patient ; as servants they were 
sad and civil, and all were singularly infantine in 

23 



FIKST FLIGHTS: 

their natural simplicity. The living representatives 

of the oldest civilisation in the world, they seemed 

like children. Yet they kept their beliefs and 

sympathies to themselves, never fraternising with the 

fanqui, or foreign devil, or losing their singular racial 

qualities. They indulged in their own peculiar habits ; 

of their social and inner life San Francisco knew but 

little and cared less. Even at this early period, and 

before I came to know them more intimately, I 

remember an incident of their daring fidelity to their 

own customs that was accidentally revealed to me. I 

had become acquainted with a Chinese youth of about 

my own age, as I imagined — although from mere 

outward appearance it was generally impossible to 

judge of a Chinaman's age between the limits of 

seventeen and forty years — and he had, in a burst of 

confidence, taken me to see some characteristic sights 

in a Chinese warehouse within a stone's-throw of the 

Plaza. I was struck by the singular circumstance 

that while the warehouse was an erection of wood in 

the ordinary hasty Californian style, there were certain 

brick and stone divisions in its interior, like small 

rooms or closets, evidently added by the Chinamen 

tenants. My companion stopped before a long, very 

narrow entrance, a mere longitudinal slit in the brick 

wall, and with a wink of infantine devilry motioned 

me to look inside. I did so, and saw a room, really a 

cell, of fair height but scarcely six feet square, and 

barely able to contain a rude, slanting couch of stone 

covered with matting, on which lay, at a painful 

angle, a richly-dressed Chinaman. A single glance 

24 



V 'STRUGGLING" 

at his dull, staring, abstracted eyes and half-opened 
mouth showed me he was in an opium trance. This 
was not in itself a novel sight, and I was moving 
away when I was suddenly startled by the appearance 
of his hands, which were stretched helplessly before 
him on his body, and at first sight seemed to be in a 
kind of wicker cage. I then saw that his finger nails 
J^were seven or eight inches long, and were supported 
by bamboo splints. Indeed they were no longer 
human nails, but twisted and distorted quills, giving 
him the appearance of having gigantic claws. ' Velly 
big Chinaman,' whispered my cheerful friend ; ' first- 
chopman — high classee — no can washee — no can eat — 
no dlinke, no catchee him own glub allee same no thee 
man— China boy must catchee glub for him, allee 
time ! Oh, him first-chopman — you bet tee ! ' 

" I had heard of this singular custom of indicating 
caste before, and was amazed and disgusted, but I 
was not prepared for what followed. My companion, 
evidently thinking he had impressed me, grew more 
reckless as showman, and saying to me, ' Now me 
showee you one funny thing — heap makee you laugh,' 
led me hurriedly across a little courtyard swarming 
with chickens and rabbits, when he stopped before 
another enclosure. Suddenly brushing past an asto- 
nished Chinaman who seemed to be standing guard, 
he thrust me into the enclosure in front of a most 
extraordinary object. It was a Chinaman wearing a 
huge, square, wooden frame fastened around his neck 
like a collar, and fitting so tightly and rigidly that 
the fiesh rose in puffy weal s around his cheeks. He 

25 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

was chained to a post, although it was as impossible 
for him to have escaped with his wooden cage through 
the narrow doorway as it was for him to lie down 
and rest in it. Yet I am bound to say that his eyes 
and face expressed nothing but apathy, and there 
was no appeal to the sympathy of the stranger. My 
companion said hurriedly, ' Velly bad man ; steelee 
heap from Chinamen,' and then, apparently alarmed 
at his own indiscreet intrusion, hustled me away as 
quickly as possible amid a shrill cackling of pro- 
testation from a few of his own countrymen who 
had joined the one who was keeping guard. In 
another moment we were in the street again — scarce 
a step from the Plaza, in the full light of Western 
civilisation — not a stone's-throw from the Courts of 
Justice. 

" My companion took to his heels and left me stand- 
ing there bewildered and indignant. I could not rest 
until I had told my story, but without betraying my 
companion, to an elder acquaintance, who laid the 
facts before the police authorities. I had expected to 
be closely cross-examined — to be doubted — to be dis- 
believed. To my surprise, I was told that the police 
already had cognisance of similar cases of illegal and 
barbarous punishments, but that the victims them- 
selves refused to testify against their countrymen — 
and it was impossible to convict or even to identify 
them. ' A white man can't tell one Chinese from 
another, and there are always a dozen of 'em ready to 
swear that the man you've got isn't the one.' I was 

startled to reflect that I, too, coula nuu have con- 

26 



"STRUGGLING" 

scientiously sworn to either jailer or the tortured 
prisoner, or perhaps even to my cheerful companion. 
The police on some pretext made a raid upon the 
premises a day or two afterwards, but without result. 
I wondered if they had caught sight of the high-class, 
first-chop individual with the helplessly outstretched 
fingers, as that story I had kept to myself. 

" But these barbaric vestiges in John Chinaman's 
habits did not affect his relations with the San 
Franciscans. He was singularly peaceful, docile, and 
harmless as a servant, and, with rare exceptions, 
honest and temperate. If he sometimes matched 
cunning with cunning, it was the flattery of imita- 
tion. He did most of the menial work of San 
Francisco, and did it cleanly. Except that he exhaled 
-ia peculiar drug-like odour, he was not personally 
offensive in domestic contact, and by virtue of being 
the recognised laundry-man of the whole community 
his own blouses were always freshly washed and 
ironed. His conversational reserve arose, not from 
his having to deal with an unfamiliar language — for 
he had picked up a varied and picturesque vocabulary 
with ease — but from his natural temperament. He 
was devoid of curiosity, and utterly unimpressed by 
anything but the purely business concerns of those he 
served. Domestic secrets were safe with him : his 
indifference to your thoughts, actions, and feelings 
had all the contempt which his three thousand years 
of history and his innate belief in your inferiority 
seemed to justify. He was blind and deaf in your 

household, because you didn't interest him in the 

27 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

least. It was said that a gentleman who wished to 
test his impassiveness arranged with his wife to come 
home one day and, in the hearing of his Chinese 
waiter — who was more than usually intelligent — to 
disclose with well simulated emotion the details of a 
murder he had just committed. He did so. The 
Chinaman heard it without a sign of horror or atten- 
tion even to the lifting of an eyelid, but continued 
his duties unconcerned. Unfortunately, the gentle- 
man, in order to increase the horror of the situation, 
added that now there was nothing left for him but to 
cut his own throat. At this John quietly left the 
room. The gentleman was delighted with the success 
of his ruse until the door reopened and John re- 
appeared with his master's razor, which he quietly 
slipped — as if it had been a forgotten fork — beside his 
master's plate, and calmly resumed his serving. I 
have always considered this story to be quite as im- 
probable as it was inartistic, from its tacit admission 
of a certain interest on the part of the Chinaman. 
I never knew one who would be sufficiently concerned 
to go for the razor. 

" His taciturnity and reticence may have been 
confounded with rudeness of address, although he 
was always civil enough. ' I see you have listened 
to me and done exactly what I told you,' said a lady, 
commending some performance of her servant after 
a previous lengthy lecture ; ' that's very nice.' ' Yes,' 
said John calmly, ' you talkee allee time ; talkee allee 
too much.' 

" ' I always find Ling very polite,' said another 

28 



^^ STRUGGLING" 

lady, speaking of her cook, 'but I wish he did not 
always say to me, " Good-night, John," in a high, falsetto 
voice.' She had not recognised the fact that he was 
simply repeating her own salutation with his marvel- 
lous instinct of relentless imitation, even as to voice." 
Bret Harte could tell endless anecdotes of this 
description, for, as his verses and stories testify, he 
made a minute study of the Chinamen who had so 
impressed him in his boyish days at San Francisco. 
In common with the famous Heathen Chinee, Ah 
Sin, "John's" favourite pastime seems to have been 
gambling, but a strange and humorous anecdote is 
recorded of a company of Chinese jugglers who had 
been engaged to perform at one of the leading 
"'Frisco" theatres on the strength of its native 
reputation, and in the hope of drawing a large 
audience of celestials. They had not been seen by 
the American manager before the evening of their 
promised appearance, and it so happened that his 
theatre was filled with an audience of decorous and 
respectable San Franciscans of both sexes. It was 
suddenly emptied in the middle of the performance : 
the curtain came down with an alarmed and blush- 
ing manager apologising to deserted benches, and 
the show abruptly terminated. Exactly what had 
happened never appeared in the public papers nor in 
the published apology of the manager. It afforded 
a few days' mirth for wicked San Francisco, and it 
was epigrammatically summed up in the remark that 
" no woman could be found in San Francisco who was 

at that performance and no man who was not." 

29 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

Bret Harte also took a keen interest in the curious 
methods of the Chinese medicine men. At the time 
when he first came into contact with this singular 
race he met an ordinary native Chinese doctor, who, 
practising entirely among his own countrymen, was 
reputed to have made extraordinary cures with two 
or three American patients. With no other advertis- 
ing than this, and apparently no other inducement 
offered to the public than what their curiosity sug- 
gested, he was presently besieged by hopeful and 
eager sufferers. Hundreds of patients were turned 
away from his crowded doors. Two interpreters sat, 
day and night, translating the ills of ailing San 
Francisco to this medical oracle and dispensing his 
prescriptions — usually small powders— in exchange 
for current coin. In vain the regular practitioners 
pointed out that the Chinese possessed no superior 
medical knowledge, and that their religion, which 
proscribed dissection and autopsies, naturally limited 
their understanding of the body into which they put 
their drugs. Finally, they prevailed upon one emi- 
nent Chinese authority to give them a list of the 
remedies generally used in the Chinese pharmaco- 
pceia, and this was privately circulated. For obvious 
reasons it was not published and cannot be explained 
here ; but it was summed up — again after the usual 
Californian epigrammatic style — by the remark that 
" whatever were the comparative merits of Chinese 
and American practice, a simple perusal of the list 
would prove that the Chinese were capable of pro- 
ducing the most powerful emetic known." The craze 

30 



"STEUGGLING" 

subsided in a single day ; the interpreters and their 
oracle vanished, the Chinese doctors' signs which had 
multiplied disappeared, and San Francisco awoke 
cured of its madness at the cost of some thousand 
dollars. 

Such were some of the traits of a race whose 
peculiarities subsequently figured so vividly and 
humorously in Bret Harte's writings. He never 
forgot the early impression they made upon him, 
and during his long sojourn in England he loved 
to conjure them up and give them a place in his 
stories. 

Concerning their medical prescriptions he told 
me many weird, not to say horrible, things ; and I 
gathered that when he was permitted to dose the 
all-powerful " Mellicans," John was inclined to be a 
little malicious and, from his point of view, to match 
cunning with cunning. 

He often wondered how he could introduce their 
artful practices into a story, and no doubt he had 
them in his mind when he penned one of his most 
recent Chinese sketches entitled " See Yup." 

He describes a group of Californian miners suifer- 
ing torments from dyspepsia. They have tried every 
quack pill and panacea advertised, and are lounging 
in the bar-room of a city saloon bewailing their woes 
and anathematising the nostrums that have failed to 
} relieve them, when one of the party, Cyrus Parker, 
says : — 

" ' Well, gen'lemen, ye kin talk of your patent 
medicines, and I've tackled 'em all, but only the 

31 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

other day I struck suthin' that I'm goin' to hang 
on to, you bet.' 

" Every eye was turned moodily to the speaker, 
but no one said anything. 

" ' And I didn't get it outer advertisements nor 
off circulars. I got it outer my head, just by solid 
thinkin',' continued Parker. 

" ' What is it, Cy ? ' demanded one unsophisticated 
and inexperienced sufferer. 

" Instead of replying, Parker, like a true artist, 
knowing he had the ear of his audience, dramatically 
flashed a question upon them. 

" ' Did you ever hear of a Chinaman having 
dyspepsy ? ' 

" ' Never heard he had sabe enough to have any- 
thing,^ said a scorner. 

" ' No, but did ye ? ' insisted Parker. 

" ' Well, no,' chorused the group. They were 
evidently struck with the fact. 

" ' Of course you didn't,' said Parker triumphantly. 
' 'Cos they aint. Well, gen'lemen, it didn't seem to 
me the square thing that a pesky lot o' yellow-skinned 
heathens should be built different to a white man, 
and never know the tortur' that a Christian feels ; 
and one day, arter dinner, when I was just a lyin' 
flat down on the bank, squirmin', and clutchin' the 
short grass to keep from yellin', who should go by 
but that pizened See Yup, with a grin on his face ? ' 

" ' Mellican man plenty playee to him Joss after 
eatin',' sez he ; ' but Chinaman smellee punk, allee 
same, and no hab got.' 

32 




Jlret Ilarte, from a iJacfuerrotype taken ichen he ivas 17 years old, and 
shortly before he set out for the Californian yoldftelds. 



{To face p. 32. 



"STRUGGLING" 

" ' I knew the slimy cuss was just purtendin' he 
thought I was prayin' to my Joss, but I was that 
weak I hadn't stren'th, boys, to heave a rock at him. 
Yet it gave me an idea.' 

" ' What was it ? ' they asked eagerly. 

" ' I went down to his shop the next day, when 
he was alone, and I was feelin' mighty bad, and I got 
hold of his pigtail and allowed I'd stuff it down his 
throat if he didn't tell me what he meant. Then he 
took a piece of punk and lit it, and put it under 
my nose, and, darn my skin, gen'lemen, you mightn't 
believe me, but in a minute I felt better, and after a 
whiff or two I was all right.' 

" ' Was it powerful strong, Cy ? ' asked the inex- 
perienced one. 

" ' No,' said Parker, ' and that's just what got 
me. It was a sort o' dreamy, spicy smell, like a hot 
night. But as I couldn't go round 'mong you boys 
with a lighted piece o' punk in my hands, ez if I was 
I settin' off fourth o' July fire-crackers, I asked him 
if he couldn't fix me up suthin' in another shape that 
would be handier to use when I was took bad — and 
I'd reckon to pay him for it, like ez I'd pay him for 
any other patent medicine. So he fixed me up this.' 

" He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a 
small red paper, which, when opened, disclosed a pink 
powder. It was gravely passed around the group. 

" ' Why, it smells and tastes like ginger,' said one. 

" ' It is only ginger ! ' said another scornfully. 

" ' Mebbee it is and mebbee it isn't,' returned Cy 
Parker stoutly. ' Mebbee it's only my fancy ; but if 

33 " c 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

it's the sort o' stuff to bring on that fancy, and that 
fancy cures me, it's all the same. I've got about two 
dollars' worth o' that fancy, or that ginger, and I'm 
goin' to stick to it. You hear me ? ' And he care- 
fully put it back in his pocket. 

" At which criticisms and gibes broke forth. If 
he (Cy Parker), a white man, was going to ' demean 
himself by consulting a Chinese quack, he'd better 
buy up a lot o' idols and stand 'em up around his cabin. 
If he had that sort o' confidences with See Yup, he 
ought to go to work with him on his cheap tailings, 
and be fumigated all at the same time. If he'd been 
smoking an opium pipe instead of smelling punk he 
ought to be man enough to confess it. Yet it was 
noticeable that they were all very anxious to examine 
the packet again, but Cy Parker was alike indifferent 
to demand or entreaty." 

But one by one the suffering sceptics, in secret 
fashion, followed the example set by Cyrus Parker 
and became the patients of See Yup. About a month 
later Doctor Duchesne (an admirably drawn character 
of a kindly -hearted but somewhat brusque old army 
surgeon, who figures in many of Bret Harte's stories) 
strolled into the Palmetto saloon where the mining 
comrades again sought recreation. After he had 
exchanged salutations with the company in his usual 
hearty fashion, and accepted their invitation to drink, 
Cy Parker, " with a certain affected carelessness, 
which did not, however, conceal a singular hesitation 
in his speech, began — 

" ' I've been wantin' to ask ye a question. Doc — 

34 



-STRUGGLING" 

a sort o' darned fool question, ye know — nothing in 
the way of consultation, don't you see, tho' it's kinder 
in the way o' your purfeshion. Sahe f ' 

" ' Go on, Cy,' said the doctor good-humouredly, 
* this is my dispensary hour.' 

" ' Oh, it ain't anything about symptoms. Doc, and 
there ain't anything the matter with me. It's only 
just to ask ye if ye happened to know anything about 
the medical practice of these yer Chinamen ? ' 

" ' I don't know,' said the doctor bluntly, ' and I 
don't know anybody who does.' 

" There was a sudden silence in the bar, and the 
doctor, putting down his glass, continued with slight 
professional precision — 

" ' You see the Chinese know nothing of anatomy 
from personal observation. Autopsies and dissection 
are against their superstitions, which declare the 
human body sacred, and are consequently never prac- 
tised.' 

" There was a slight movement of inquiring interest 
among the party, and Cy Parker, aftar a meaning 
glance at the others, went on half aggressively, half 
apologetically — 

" ' In course they ain't surgeons like you, Doc, but 
that don't keep them from having their own little 
medicines, just as dogs eat grass, you know. Now, I 
want to put it to you, as a fa'r-minded man, if yer 
•mean to say that, jest because those old women who 
j serve out yarbs and sjDring medicines in families don't 
know anything of anatomy they ain't fit to give us 
their simple and nat'ral medicines ? ' 

35 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

" ' But the Chinese medicines are not simple or 
natural,' said the doctor coolly. 

"'Not simple?' echoed the party, closing round 
him. 

"'I don't mean to say,' continued the doctor, glanc- 
ing around at their eager excited faces with an appear- 
ance of wonder, ' that they are positively noxious, 
unless taken in large quantities, for they are not drugs 
at all ; but I certainly should not call them " simple." 
Do you know what they principally are ? ' 

" ' Well, no,' said Parker cautiously, ' perhaps not 
exactly' 

" ' Come a little nearer and I'll tell you.' 

" Not only Parker's head but the others were bent 
over the counter. Doctor Duchesne uttered a few 
words in a tone inaudible to the rest of the company. 
There was a profound silence, broken at last by Abe 
Wynford's voice. 

" ' Ye kin pour me out about three fingers o' whisky, 
Barkeep. I'll take it straight.' 

" ' Same to me,' said the others. 

" The men gulped down their liquor : two of them 
quietly passed out. The doctor wiped his lips, but- 
toned his coat, and began to draw on his riding gloves. 

" ' I've heard,' said Poker Jack of Shasta with a 
faint smile on his white face, as he toyed with the 
last drops of liquor in his glass, ' that the darned fools 
sometimes smell punk as a medicine, eh ? ' 

" ' Yes, that's comparatively decent,' said the doctor 
reflectively. ' It's only sawdust mixed with a little 
ffum and formic acid.' 

36 



-STRUGGLING" 

" ' Formic acid ? Wot's that ? ' 

'"A very peculiar acid secreted by ants. It is 
supposed to be used by them offensively in warfare, 
just as the skunk, eh ? ' 

" But Poker Jack of Shasta had hurriedly declared 
that he wanted to speak to a man who was passing, 
and had disappeared. The doctor walked to the door, 
mounted his horse, and rode away. I noticed, how- 
ever, there was a slight smile on his bronzed impas- 
sive face. This led me to wonder if he was entirely 
ignorant of the purpose for which he had been ques- 
tioned, and the effect of his information. I was 
confirmed in the belief by the remarkable circumstance 
that nothing more was said of it ; the incident seemed 
to have terminated there, and the victims made no 
attempt to revenge themselves on See Yup. That 
they had, one and all, secretly and unknown to each 
other patronised him there was no doubt ; but at the 
same time, as they evidently were not sure that Dr. 
Duchesne had not hoaxed them in regard to the 
quality of See Yups medicines, they knew that an 
attack on the unfortunate Chinaman would, in either 
case, reveal their secret and expose them to the 
ridicule of their brother miners. So the matter 
dropped, and See Yup remained master of the 
situation." 

Having reaped an abundant harvest of indelible 
impressions in San Francisco, and finding nothing to 
occupy him there, young Bret Harte, in search of a 
vocation, and full of curiosity, set oft' in the wake of 
the gold seekers he so happily called " The Argonauts 

37 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

of '49." From his expedition he was to bring home 
a Golden Fleece far more valuable to the thinking 
world than any represented by auriferous nuggets 
or weighty bags of glittering gold dust. Lessons such 
as he learned in those rough Californian days, and with 
a generous hand and matchless pen gave to all who 
cared to profit by them, made thousands and thousands 
of us far richer than mere gold will ever do. He went 
into a country formed to fascinate one of his romantic 
and imaginative temperament. The natural grandeur 
and beauty of it, his knowledge of its early occupation 
by the Spanish, and the legends clinging to the old 
mission houses made it an unexplored fairy-land for 
fancy ; and in startling contrast to this dreamy vision 
and the leisurely Spaniards who had Hasta manana 
(" Wait till to-morrow ") for one of their favourite 
bywords, he found the extraordinary crowd of later- 
day humanity jostling against each other in their hot 
haste to be among the first in the fierce and exciting 
race for wealth. 

It must have been an extraordinary and probably 
unexampled experience. Hordes of strong men clad 
in red shirts and high boots striving against each 
other in the wild fight for gold : all young and 
muscular men, for no old man or semi-invalid could I 
have borne the roughness and the fatigue of the life. 
" On one occasion," he has recorded, " I remember an 
^elderly man — he was fifty perhaps, but he had a grey 
beard — and he was pointed out as a curiosity, and I 
men turned to look at him as they would have looked 
at any other unfamiliar object." And yet these miners, 

38 



'STRUGGLING" 

roughing it in a manner that would be intolerable even 
to our English " navvies," were civilised, many of them 
being men of culture and even high attainments, but 
anxious (no doubt in full recollection of bitter dis- 
appointments) to win their way to fortune by a short 
cut. Women were almost unknown ; but when they 
did appear in the camps, and proved themselves 
worthy of regard, they were treated with that tender- 
ness and chivalry that appealed to the heart of the 
gently-nurtured son of the Albany professor, and 
formed the theme for so many of his exquisite stories. 
Such a strange change in the life of one only ap- 
proaching manhood has surely hardly ever been. 

Little by little he traced out the history of this 
unfamiliar throng and found how they had at firstly--' 
lived in tents, then in cabins. The climate was 
gracious, and except for the rudest purposes of shelter 
in the winter rains they could have slept out of doors 
the year round, as many preferred to do. As they 
grew more ambitious perhaps a small plot of ground 
was enclosed and cultivated, but for the first few 
years they looked upon themselves as tenants at will, 
and were afraid of putting down anything they could 
not take away. Chimneys to their cabins were for a 
long time avoided, as having this objectionable fea- 
ture. Long after the arrival of the earliest Argonauts, 
deserted mining camps were marked by the solitary 
adobe chimneys still left standing when the frame of « / 
the original cabin was moved to some newer location. I ^^J. 

Their housekeeping was of the rudest kind. For 
many months the fryingpan formed their only avail- 

39 



Vw^ FIRST FLIGHTS: 

^/^y»v— Aable cooking utensil. It was lashed to the wandering 

^p:^ miner's back like the troubadour's guitar. He fried 

^ his bread, his beans, his bacon, and occasionally stewed 

his coffee in this single vessel. But that nature worked 

for him with a balsamic air and breezy tonic he might 

have succumbed. Happily__his nieals were^jfew and 

V infrequent ; happily the inventions of his mother earth 

/-) '^^ ' were equal to his needs. His progressive tracks through 

\ these mountain solitudes were marked with tin cans 

bearing the inscription, " Cove Oysters," " Shaker 

Sweet Corn," " Yeast Powder," " Boston Crackers," and 

the like. But in the hour of adversity and the moment 

of perplexity his main reliance was beans ! It was the 

sole legacy of the Spanish Californian. 

The Argonaut's dress was peculiar. He was ready, 
if not skilful, with his needle, and was ^ond of patching 
his clothes until the original material disappeared be- 
neath a cloud of amendments. The flour sack was 
his main dependence. When its contents had sus- 
tained and comforted the inner man, the husk clothed 
the outer man. Two gentlemen of respectability in 
earlier days lost their identity in the labels somewhat 
conspicuously borne on their trousers, and were known 
to the camp in all seriousness as " Genesee Mills " and 
A " Eagle Brand." 

In the Southern Mines they bought up a quantity 
of seamen's clothing condemned by the navy depart- 
ment and sold at auction. For a year after the 
sombre woodland shades were lightened by the white 
ducks and blue and white shirts of these sailor lands- 
men. It was odd that the only picturesque bit of 

40 



"STRUGGLING" 

colour in their dress was accidental and owing to a 
careless, lazy custom. Their handkerchiefs of coarse 
red, blue, green or yellow bandana were, for greater 
convenience in hot weather, knotted at the ends and 
thrown shawlwise around the shoulders. Against a 
background of olive foliage the effect was always (J 
striking and kaleidoscopic. The soft felt hat was 
their only head covering. A tall hat on anybody 
but a clergyman or gambler would have justified a 
blow. 

They were, to a man, singularly handsome. Not 
solely in the muscular development and antique grace 
acquired through open-air exercise and unrestrained 
freedom of limb, but often in colour, expression, and 
even softness of outline. They were mainly young men 
whose beards were virgin, soft, silken, and curling. 
They had not always time to cut their hair, and 
this often swept their shoulders with the love-locks 
of the Stuart Kings of England and bygone sove- 
reigns of France. There were faces Bret Harte has 
declared in later years that made him think of Del- 
La Roche's Saviour, and dashing figures, bold-eyed, 
jauntily insolent, and carelessly reckless, that would 
have delighted Meissonier. 

Added to this, the foreign element of Spaniards 
and Mexicans produced a combination of light and 
colour unknown to any other modern English-speaking 
community. 

Long after he had left these wild but fascinating 
scenes, he loved to recall how at sunset, on the red 
mountain road, a Mexican pack train would slowly 

41 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

, wind its way towards the plain. Each animal wore a 
P\A gaily- coloured blanket beneath its pack-saddle, the 
"'^^ „^eading mule was musical with bells and brightly 
caparisoned, the muleteers wore the national dress 
with striped serapd of red and black, deer-skin 
trousers open from the knee and fringed with buttons, 
and had on each heel a silver spur with rowels three 
inches in diameter. 

If the Argonauts were thus picturesque in their 
external appearance, associates, and environment, no 
less romantic were they in expression and character. 
Their hospitality was barbaric, their generosity 
spontaneous. Their appreciation of merit always 
took the form of a pecuniary testimonial, whether 
it was a church and parsonage given to a favourite 
preacher, or the shower of gold they rained upon the 
pretty person of a popular actress. No mendicant 
had to beg ; a sympathising bystander took up a 
subscription in his hat. Their generosity was emula- 
tive and cumulative, and speaking of later days than 
those of which I am now writing, Bret Harte recalled 
the curious but interesting fact that during the great 
war of the Rebellion the millions gathered in the 
Treasury of the Sanitary Commission had their source 
in a San Francisco bar room ! 

" It's mighty rough on those chaps who are 
wounded," said a casual drinker, " and I'm sorry for 
them." 

" How much are you sorry ? " asked a gambler. 
^ " Five hundred dollars," said the first speaker 

aggressively. 

42 



"STRUGGLING" 

" I'll see that five hundred dollars and go a 
thousand better," said the gambler, putting down the 
money. 

In half-an-hour fifteen thousand dollars was the 
amount telegraphed to Washington from San Fran- 
cisco, and this great National Charity, open to North 
and South — afterwards reinforced by three millions 
of California gold — sprang into life. 

In their apparently thoughtless free-handedness 
there was often a vein of practical sagacity. After 
the great fire in Sacramento, the first subscription to 
the rebuilding of the Methodist Church came from L^ 
the hands of a noted gambler. The good pastor, 
while accepting the gift, could not help asking the 
giver why he did not keep the money to build 
another gambling house. 

" It would be making things a little monotonous 
out yer, old man," responded the gambler gravely, 
" and it's variety that's wanted for a big town." 

As Bret Harte saw them the Argonauts were 
splendidly loyal in their friendships. Perhaps, he 
thought, the absence of feminine society and domestic 
ties turned the current of their tenderness and 
sentiment towards each other. 

To be a man's " partner " signified something more 
than a common pecuniary or business interest ; it was 
to be his " friend " through good or ill report, in/-^ 
adversity or in fortune, to cleave to him and none 
other — to be even jealous of him ! 

There were Argonauts who were, probably, more 
faithful to their partners than they had ever been to 

43 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

their wives ; there were partners whom even the 
grave could not divide — who remained soUtary and 
A loyal to a dead man's memory. To insult a man's 
partner was to insult him ; to step between two 
partners in a quarrel was attended with the same 
danger and uncertainty that involves the peacemaker 
in a conjugal dispute. 

The heroic qualities of a Damon and Pythias were 
always present ; there were men who had fulfilled all 
those conditions, and, better still, without a know- 
ledge or belief that they were classical, with no 
mythology to lean their backs against, and hardly 
a conscious appreciation of a later faith that is 
symbolised by sacrifice. In these unions there were 
the same odd combinations often seen in the marital 
-* relations ; a tall and a short man, a delicate, sickly 
youth and a middle-aged man of powerful frame, a 
grave reticent nature and a spontaneous exuberant one. 

" My pardner left me the other day," said a 
disconsolate Mississippean. " My pardner left me, 
and has took up with a shiny Yankee at Gold Hill. 
Well," he added with a heartfelt sigh, " I might 
have reckoned on it ; he was allez fickle and fond o' 
jewelry and dress ! " 

Yet in spite of these incongruities there was 
always the same blind unreasoning fidelity to each 
other. It is true that their zeal sometimes outran 
their discretion. There was a story in those days 
of a San Francisco stranger who, while indulging in 
some free criticism of religious demonstrations, sud- 
denly found himself sprawling upon the floor with 

44 



-STRUGGLING" 

an irate Kentuckian, revolver in hand, standing 
over him. When an explanation was demanded by 
the crowd, the Kentuckian pensively returned his 
revolver to his belt. " Well," he said, " / ain't got 
anythin' agin the stranger, but he said suthin' a 
minute ago agin Quakers, and I want him to under- 
stand that my pai^dner is a Quaker, and — a — a 
peaceful man " ! 

Their domestic life was of course rugged. Women 
were few, and the family hearthstones and domestic 
altars still more rare. Of housewifely virtues the 
utmost was made ; the model spouse invariably kept 
a boarding-house and served her husband's guests. 
In out-of-the-way cases the woman who was a crown 
to her husband took in washing also. 

Bret Harte remembered a woman of this class 
who lived in a little mining camp in the Sierras. 
Her husband was a Texan — a good-humoured giant, 
who had the respect of the camp perhaps quite 
as much by his amiable weakness as his great physical 
power. She was an Eastern woman — had been a 
schoolmistress, and had lived in cities up to the 
time of her marriage and emigration. She was not, 
perhaps, personally attractive ; she was plain and 
worn beyond her years, and her few personal ac- 
complishments — a slight knowledge of French and 
Italian, music, and Latin classification of plants, 
natural philosophy, and Blair's Rhetoric — did not tell 
upon the masculine inhabitants of Bingtail Canon. 
Yet she was universally loved, and Aunt Buth, as 
she was called, or old Ma'am Bichards, was lifted 

45 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

into an idealisation of the aunt, mother, or sister 
of every miner in the camp. She reciprocated in a 
thousand ways — mending the clothes, ministering to 
the sick, and even answering the long home letters 
of the men. 

Presently she fell sick. Nobody knew exactly 
what was the matter with her, but she pined slowly 
away. When the burden of her household tasks 
was lifted from her shoulders, she took to long walks, 
wandering over the hills, and was often seen upon 
>the highest ridge at sunset looking towards the East. 
Here one day she was found senseless, the result, 
it was said, of over-exertion, and she was warned 
to keep in the house. So she kept her house, and 
even went so far as to keep her bed. One day, to 
everybody's astonishment, she died. " Do you know 
what they say Ma'am Richards died of?" said Yuba 
Bill to his partner. " No," was the reply. " The 
doctor says she died of nostalgia," said Bill. 
" What blank thing is nostalgia ? " asked the other. 
" Well," Bill answered, " it's a kind of longing to 
go to Heaven." " Perhaps," said Bret Harte in 
telling this story, " perhaps he was right." 

He found that the Argonauts were not, as a 
rule, overburdened with sentiment, and were utterly 
free from its more dangerous ally, sentimentalism. 
They took a sardonic delight in stripping all mere- 
tricious finery from their speech ; they had a sarcastic 
fashion of eliminating everything but the facts from 
poetic or imaginative narration. With all that ter- 
rible directness of statement which was habitual to 

46 



"STRUGGLING" 

them when they indulged in innuendo, it was signifi- 
cantly cruel and striking. 

In the early days Lynch law punished horse- 
stealing with death. A man one day was arrested 
and tried for this offence. After hearing the evidence 
the jury duly retired to consult upon their verdict. 
Perhaps from an insufficiency of proof, perhaps from 
motives of humanity, perhaps because the case was 
showing an alarming decrease in the male population, 
but for some reason the jury showed signs of hesi- 
tation. The crowd outside became impatient. After 
waiting an hour, the ringleader put his head into 
the jury-room and asked if they had settled upon a 
verdict. " No," said the foreman. " Well," answered 
the leader, " take your own time, gentlemen ; only 
remember that we're waitin' for this yer room to 
lay out the corpse in " ! 

Their humour was frequent, although never ex- 
uberant or spontaneous, and always contained a 
certain percentage of rude justice or morality under 
its sardonic exterior. The only ethical teaching of 
those days was through a joke or a sarcasm. While 
camps were moved by an epigram, the rude equity 
of Judge Lynch was swayed by a witticism. Even 
their pathos, which was more or less dramatic, par- 
took of this quality. The odd expression, the quaint 
fancy, or even grotesque gesture that rippled the 
surface consciousness with a smile, a moment later 
touched the depths of the heart with a sense of 
infinite sadness. 

They indulged sparingly in poetry or illustration, 

47 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

using only its rude inchoate form of slang. Unlike 
the meaningless catch -words of an older and more 
indolent civilisation, their slang was the condensed 
epigrammatic illustration of some fact, fancy, or per- 
ception. Generally it had some significant local 
derivation. The half-yearly drought brought forward 

^the popular adjuration "dry up" to express the 
natural climax of evaporated fluency. " Played 
out " was a reminiscence of the gambling table, and 

^ expressed that hopeless condition of affairs where 

' even the operation of chance is suspended. " To 
take stock " in any statement, theory, or suggestion, 

' indicated a pecuniary degree of trustful credulity. 

^ Even though it came from a gambler's lips one 

■ can hardly call that slang which gives such a vivid 

picture of the reckoning hereafter as is to be found 

' conveyed in the expression, " handing in your checks." 

. Bret Harte remembered how Thomas Starr King, a 
great preacher, under whose influence, as we shall 
presently see, he in later years became in wrapt, 
after delivering a controversial sermon one Sunday, 
overheard the following dialogue between a parish- 
ioner and his friend : " Well," said the enthusiastic 
parishioner, referring to the sermon, " what do you 
think of King now ? " " Think of him ! " responded 

^the friend, " why, he took every trick ! " 

Indeed, in those days slang was universal, and 

there was no occasion to which it seemed inconsistent. 

Sometimes through the national habit of amusing 

exaggeration, or equally grotesque understatement, 

certain words acquired a new significance. Bret 

48 



"STRUGGLING'' 

Harte recalled a night he spent at a new hotel. 
After he had got comfortably to bed, he was aroused 
by the noise of scuffling and shouting, punctuated 
by occasional pistol shots from below. In the morning 
he made his way to the bar room, and found the 
landlord behind the bar, with a bruised eye, a piece 
of court-plaster extending from his cheek to his 
forehead, yet withal a pleasant smile upon his face. 
Taking his cue from this, he said to him — "Well, 
landlord, you had rather a lively time here last night." 
" Yes," he replied pleasantly, " it was rather a lively 
time ! " " Do you often have such lively times about 
here ? " he asked, emboldened by his cheerfulness. 
" Well, no," he said reflectively ; " the fact is we've 
only just opened yer, and last night was about the 
first time that the boys seemed to be gittin' really 
acquaiiited ! " 

Then there was a man who objected to join in a 
bear hunt because " he hadn't lost any bears lately ; " 
and the man who replied to a tourist's question, 
" If they grew any corn in that locality," by saying : 
"Not a d — d bit; in fact scarcely any!" Such 
things offer easy examples of this characteristic anti- 
climax and exaggeration. Often a flavour of gentle 
philosophy mingled with it. "In course I'd rather 
not drive a mule team," said a teamster one day to 
the youthful Bret Harte. " In course I'd rather 
run a bank or be President ; but when you've lived 
as long as I have, stranger, you'll find that in 
this yer world a man don't always get his right 
place." 

49 D 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

Often a man's trade or occupation lent a graphic 
power to his speech. An engineer was one day re- 
lating to him the particulars of a fellow-workman's 
death by consumption. "Poor Jim," he said, "he 
X got to runnin' sloM^er and slower until one day he 
stopped on his centre." 

" What a picture ! " said Bret Harte, as in after 
years he quoted this incident; "what a picture of 
^-^the helpless hitch in this weary human machine." 

Sometimes the expression was borrowed from 
another profession. One day there was a difficulty 
in a surveyor's camp between the surveyor and a 
Chinaman. "If I were you," said a sympathising 
teamster to the surveyor, " I'd just take that chap 
and theodolite him out o' camp." 

Sometimes the slang was a mere echo of the 
formulas of some popular excitement or movement. 
During a camp meeting in the mountains a teamster 
who had been swearing at his cattle was rebuked 
for his impiety by a young woman who had just 
returned from the meeting. " Why, Miss," said the 
astonished teamster, "you don't call that swearing, 
do you ? Why, you ought to hear Bill Jones 
exhort the impenitent mule ! " 

" But," said Bret Harte, " can we entirely forgive 
the Argonaut for making his slang gratuitously per- 
manent ? for foisting upon posterity, who may forget 
these extenuating circumstances, such titles as 
' One Horse Gulch,' ' Greaser Canon,' ' Fiddletown,' 
^'Murderer's Bar,' and 'Dead Broke.' The map of 
California is still ghastly with this unhallowed 

50 



'STRUGGLING" 

christening/ A tourist may well hesitate to write 
'Dead Broke' at the top of his letter, and any- 
stranger would be justified in declining an invitation 
to ' Murderer's Bar.' It seemed as if the early 
Californian took a sardonic delight in the contrast 
these names offered to the euphony of the old Spanish 
titles. With few exceptions the counties of the 
State still bear the soft Castilian labials and gentle 
vowels — Tuolumne, Tulare, Tolo, Calaveras, Siskiyou, 
and Mendocino ; to say nothing of the glorious com- 
pany of the apostles who perpetually praise California 
throughout the Spanish Catholic calendar. Yet 
wherever a saint dropped a blessing, some sinner 
afterwards squatted with an epithet. Extremes 
often met. The omnibuses in San Francisco used to 
run from the Happy Valley to the Mission Dolores. 
You had to go to Blaises first before you could get 
to Purissima. Yet I think the ferocious directness 
of these titles was preferable to the pinchbeck 
elegance of Copperpolis, Argenticia, the polyglot 
monstrosities of Ore-ville and Placer-ville, or the 
remarkable sentiment of Komeosburgh and Juliets- 
town. I wish I could say that the Spaniard fared 
any better than his language at the hands of the 
Argonauts. He was called a ' Greaser,' an unctuous 
reminiscence of the Mexican war, and applied errone- 
ously to the Spanish Californian who was not a 
Mexican. The pure blood of Castile ran in his veins. 
He held his lands sometimes by Royal Patent of 

^ Twenty-two years have elapsed since Bret Harte uttered these words. 
Possibly some of these too suggestive names are now changed. 

51 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

Charles V. He was grave, simple, and confiding. 
He accepted the Argonaut's irony as sincere, he per- 
mitted him to squat on his lands, he allowed him to 
marry his daughter. He found himself in a few 
years laughed at, landless, and alone. In his sore 
extremity he entered into a defensive alliance with 
some of his persecutors, and revenged himself after 
an extraordinary fashion. In all matters relating 
to early land grants his was the only available 
memory, his the only legal testimony on the court. 
Perhaps strengthened by this repeated exercise, his 
memory became one of the most extraordinary, his 
testimony the most complete and corroborative known 
to human experience. He recalled conversations, 
official orders, and precedents of fifty years ago as if 
they were matters of yesterday. He produced grants, 
signatures, and letters with promptitude and despatch. 
He evolved evidence from his inner consciousness, 
and in less than three years Spanish land titles were 
lost in hopeless confusion and a cloud of witnesses. 
The wily Argonauts cursed the aptness of their pupil. 
" Socially he clung to his old customs. He had his 
regular fandango, strummed his guitar, and danced 
the cachuca and kindred dances of his nation. He 
had his Sunday bullfights after Mass. But the wily 
Greek Argonaut introduced breakdowns in the 
fandango, substituted the banjo for the guitar, and 
Bourbon whisky for Aguardiente. He even went so far ; 
as to interfere with his bullfights, not so much from a 
sense of moral ethics as with the view of giving the 
bull a show. He substituted on one or two occasions I 

52 



"STRUGGLING" 

a grizzly bear, who not only instantly cleared the 
arena, but playfully wiped out the first two rows of 
benches beyond. 

" He learned horsemanship from the Spaniard and 
ran off with his cattle ! " 

When Bret Harte first joined the Argonauts he 
tried his luck at gold finding, and for a time pluckily 
worked side by side with his quaint but picturesque 
comrades. He prospected, shovelled, picked, washed, 
and all the rest of it, and so far mastered his trade 
that he was able to describe all its processes with 
minute accuracy. But it was not likely that this 
class of work would suit him, and, having gained his 
experience, and satisfied his curiosity, he discarded his 
mining tools and became a messenger in the employ 
-A of the Adams Express Company. His business was 
to sit beside the drivers of the stage coaches and to 
guard the gold, greenbacks, and letters which the 
Company undertook to deliver from the camp miners 
to the banks, or to their friends in the nearest towns. 
Considering that stage robberies were the order of 
the day, this experience was not only an exciting but 
a perilous one. To it, however, we are indebted for 
his wonderful descriptions of the dangerous stage 
roads, down the steep grades of which six horses 
would be driven by an unfaltering hand at a pace so \^ 
terrific, that the passengers had to cling desperately 
to the terribly swaying coach as it thundered along, 
and try to keep their equilibrium. 

To them, moreover, we owe the inimitably drawn 
^character of Yuba Bill, the most fearless and grimly 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

humorous of stage coachmen — one of the finest in 
the rich gallery of Bret Harte's portraits. To describe 
the sort of thing that the Expressman, as he was 
called, had to endure, I may quote from one of his 
stories. 

Yuba Bill has been warned that, at a particularly 
dangerous portion of the road, a tree has fallen across 
the track (this was no uncommon danger), and to his 
intense annoyance the coach has been kept standing 
while he, his assistants, and some of his passengers 
went forward to remove the obstacle. This having 
been achieved. Bill returned, gathered up the reins, 
and in five minutes the scene of former obstruction 
was reached. 

" The great pine tree which had fallen from the 
steep bank above and stretched across the road had 
been partly lopped of its branches, divided in two 
lengths, which were now rolled to either side of the 
track, leaving barely space for the coach to pass. The 
huge vehicle ' slowed up ' as Yuba Bill skilfully guided 
his six horses through this narrow alley, whose tassels 
of pine, glistening with wet, brushed the panels and 
sides of the coach, and effectually excluded any view 
from its windows. Seen from the coach top, the 
horses appeared to be cleaving their way through a 
dark, shining olive sea, that parted before and closed 
behind them, as they slowly passed. The leaders 
were just emerging from it, and Bill was gathering 
up his slackened reins, when a peremptory voice 
called, ' Halt ! ' At the same moment the coach 
lights flashed upon a masked and motionless horse- 

54 



"STRUGGLING" 

man in the road. Bill made an impulsive reach for 
his whip, but in the same instant checked himself, 
reined in his horses with a suppressed oath, and sat 
perfectly rigid. Not so the Expressman, who caught 
up his rifle, but it was arrested by Bill's arm, and his 
voice in his ear — 

" ' Too late — we're covered ! Don't be a d — d 
fool ! ' 

" The inside passengers, still encompassed by 
obscurity, knew only that the stage had stopped. 
The ' outsiders ' knew, by experience, that they were 
covered by unseen guns in the wayside branches, and 
scarcely moved. 

" ' I didn't think it was the square thing to stop 
you, Bill, till you had got through your work,' said a 
masterful but not unpleasant voice, ' and if you'll just 
hand down the express box, I'll pass you and the rest 
of your load through free ! But as we're both in a 
hurry, you'd better look lively about it.' 

" ' Hand it down,' said Bill gruflly to the 
Expressman. 

" The Expressman turned with a white cheek but 
blazing eyes to the compartment below his seat, 
brought out the box, and handed it to another armed 
and masked figure who appeared mysteriously from 
the branches beside the wheels. 

" ' Thank you,' said the voice ; ' you can slide on 
now.' 

" ' And thank you for nothing,' said Bill, gathering 
up his reins. ' It's the first time any of your kind 
had to throw down a tree to hold me up ! ' 

SS 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

" ' You're lying, Bill — though you don't know it,' 
said the voice cheerfully. ' Far from throwing down 
a tree to stop you, it was I who sent word along the 
road to warn you from crashing down upon it, and 
sending you and your load to h — 1 before your time. 
Drive on ! '" 

There was a politeness, a certain feeling of 
^J^ chivalry, and an unerring sense of humour about 
these Californian highwaymen — or road-agents as 
they called themselves and were called by others — 
that makes them even more interesting than the 
dare-devil Dick Turpins and courtly Claude Du Vals 
of another country and an earlier period. Moreover, 
they were not rapacious in their robberies ; if they 
got what they wanted they would let all else go 
scot-free. 

Bret Harte recalled an instance of a coach being 
" held up " because the leader of a gang of road- 
agents was in search of a parcel of greenbacks which 
had been fraudulently obtained from one of his friends. 
The usual thing took place. Before there was time 
to touch a weapon the rifle-covered coach was brought 
to an abrupt standstill. The unlucky Expressman's 
box was handed down and searched, and this proving 
unsatisfactory all the passengers were ordered to 
alight and stand in an undignified row, " holding up 
their hands " as evidence that they felt themselves at 
the mercy of their assailants. 

Then, addressing them, the intrepid but urbane 
agent said — 

" ' Thank you ! Gentlemen, one of you has a 

56 



'STRUGGLING" 

package of greenbacks ; I want that package. I 
don't want ' (turning to one of his victims) ' the gold 
dust concealed in the hollow sole of your boot, though 
it seems to impede your' movements, I don't ' (to an- 
other) ' want the coin you have filled up your pistol 
holster with, though you've sacrificed your pistol 
for it ; I only want the package of greenbacks that ' 
(to others) ' seems to lie between you two men.' " 

Without a murmur the packet was handed over, 
and then he coolly said — 

" ' Thanks. Bill ' (to the driver) — ' wait here until 
you hear my whistle. Raise so much as a rein or 
whip-lash until that signal, and you know what'll 
happen ! Now, gentlemen ' (to the passengers), ' you 
will not be detained here a second longer than I can 
help. I wish you a good-night, and a swift journey.' " 

At this moment one of his angry row of " held 
up " men, less used to this humiliating method of 
treatment than his comrades, said impetuously, " 'But 
I should like to say — .' The reply was in a stern 
voice, ' Say what you like when I am gone.' 

" ' Then I hope you'll be within earshot,' said the 
irate passenger. 

" ' No! but within rifle-shot,' was the grim response ; 
' and your driver knows it ! ' And then with a 
cheery ' Good-night ! ' he vanished into the darkness. 

" ' A clean job,' said Bill laconically. ' They'll 
cover us till the other man gets off" with the treasure.' 

" ' Yes,' said the gentleman with the gold dust in 
the sole of his boot, ' I guess the leader comes from 
up Country. He seemed to throw in a few fancy 

57 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

touches, particularly in that ' Good- night.' Sorter 
chucked a little sentiment in it. Didn't seem to 
be the same thing ez ' Git yer d — d suckers,' on the 
other line." 

Thus calmly were these bold robberies committed 
and received, and such were the episodes carefully 
noted by the young Expressman, who in after days 
told many droll stories of the ways in which the 
passengers would endeavour to conceal their cherished 
gold about their persons. 

But while he was thus roughing it in the mining 
camps and on stage-coaches, Bret Harte did not forget 
what was due to himself and the home of his boy- 
hood. At one of the old Spanish missions he made 
^friends with a kindly and erudite priest, and as often 
as possible was his eager pupil. We all know how 
what may be called the '' SpanMi^jnotiyp " runs grace- 
fully and melodiously through his stories and poems, 
and, indeed, forms the main theme of some of his 
most powerful work. Probably we all like his strongly 
marked Californian mining characters the best ; but 
many of us have a warm place in our hearts for the 
gentle surroundings and peaceful life of the old 
missions, redolent as they are with the fragrance of 
romance. Bret Harte often spoke gratefully of the 
help he received from his priestly tutor. After a 
while he gave up his appointment with the Adams 
^Express Company and became an assistant in a drug 
store, or chemist's shop. Of course this did not last 
long, but he must have picked up a great deal of 
knowledge, for to the end of his days he could speak 

58 



"STRUGGLING" 

with authority as to the virtues and properties of 
medicines. I have heard English physicians express 
wonder at his grasp of the subject. 

These dispensing days peep out in many of his 
stories. I am quite sure that he had himself in mind 
when he described how the junior partner of the firm 
of Sparlow & Kane, " Druggists and Apothecaries " 
of San Francisco, was left in charge of the surgery 
and its adjuncts. 

" He felt drowsy ; the mysterious incense of the 
shop, that combined essence of drugs, spice, scented 
soap, and orris-root — which always reminded him of 
the Arabian Nights — was aftecting him. He yawned, 
and then, turning away, passed behind the counter, 
took down a jar labelled ' Glycyr. Glabra,' selected a 
piece of Spanish liquorice and meditatively sucked 
it. Not receiving from it that diversion and suste- 
nance he apparently was seeking, he also visited, in 
an equally familiar manner, a jar marked ' Jujubes,' 
and returned ruminatingly to his previous position. 

"If I have not," he goes on to say, "in this 
incident sufficiently established the youthfulness of 
the junior partner, I may briefly add that he was just 
nineteen, that he had early joined the emigration to 
California, and after one or two previous light-hearted 
essays at other occupations, for which he was singu- 
larly unfitted, he had saved enough to embark on his 
present venture, still less suited to his temperament. 
In those adventurous days, trades and vocations were 
not always filled by trained workmen ; it was ex- 
tremely probable that the experienced chemist was 

59 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

already making his way as a gold-miner, with a 
lawyer and a physician for his partners, and Mr. 
Kane's inexperienced position was by no means an 
uncommon one. A slight knowledge of Latin as a 
written language, an American schoolboy's acquaint- 
ance with chemistry and natural philosophy, were 
deemed sufficient by his partner, a regular physician, 
for practical co-operation in the vending of drugs and 
putting up of prescriptions. He knew the difference 
between acids and alkalies and the peculiar results 
which attended their incautious combination. But he 
was excessively deliberate, painstaking, and cautious. 
The legend which adorned the desk at the counter, 
' Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared,' was more 
than usually true as regards the adverb. There was 
no danger of his poisoning anybody through haste 
or carelessness, but it was possible that an urgent 
' case ' might have succumbed to the disease while he 
was putting up the remedy. Nor was his precaution 
entirely passive. In those days the ' heroic ' practice 
of medicine was in keeping with the abnormal de- 
velopment of the country ; there were ' record ' doses 
of calomel and quinine, and he had once or twice 
incurred the fury of local practitioners by sending 
back their prescriptions with a modest query." 

No doubt, as young Kane, Bret Harte drew himself 
as he worked in the drug store. Possibly he was not 
quite so careful as that youthful practitioner. He 
once told me that he very nearly killed an invalid 
by making a blunder with his prescription, and as a 

matter of consequence got into great trouble. This 

60 



"STRUGGLING" 

gave him a distaste for practical pharmacy, hut the 
whole subject greatly interested him. In one of his 
later stories he described with infinite pains, and a 
grasp of his subject on which he prided himself, how 
a plain-faced Californian girl, who had lost the track 
of her father's waggon, wandered away into the woods, 
and, having in all ignorance discovered an arsenical 
.-Spring, and frequently bathed in it, became one of the 
most beautiful of women. 

Then he tried his hand as a printer. He learned 
to set type, and assisted in the publication of the 
necessary local newspaper. Here, again, he relates a 
personal experience : " ' Well ! ' said the editor of the 
Mountain Clarion, looking up impatiently from his 
copy, ' what's the matter now ? ' 

" The intruder in his sanctum was his foreman. He 
was also acting as pressman, as might be seen from 
his shirt-sleeves, spattered with ink, rolled up over 
the arm that had just been working ' the Archimedean 
lever that moves the world,' which was the editor's 
favourite allusion to the handpress that strict economy 
obliged the Clarion to use. His braces, slipped from 
his shoulders during his work, were looped negligently 
on either side, their functions being replaced by one 
hand which occasionally hitched up his trousers to a 
securer position. A pair of down-at-heel slippers — 
dear to the country printer — completed his neglige." 

The world at large did not know how he was 
enabled to etch in his characters with such minute 
precision and firmness of touch ; but to an old friend, 
sitting and chatting alone with him, he loved to speak 

6i 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

of these things as his personal experiences and to 
laugh over his recollections. 

At the editors of such papers as the Mountain 
Clarion, their frothy style and their efforts to retain 
the support of all classes of their patrons, he loved to 
deal sly and humorous little hits — as, for example, 
in " The Iliad of Sandy Bar," where he records — " I 
have before me a copy of the Poverty Flat Pioneer, 
in which the editor, under the head of ' County Im- 
provements,' says : ' The New Presbyterian Church on 
C Street at Sandy Bar is completed. It stands upon 
the lot formerly occupied by the Magnolia Saloon, 
which was so mysteriously burnt last month. The 
temple, which now rises like a Phoenix from the ashes 
of the Magnolia, is virtually the free gift of H. J. 
York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, who purchased the lot and 
donated the lumber. Other buildings are going up 
in the vicinity, but the most noticeable is the ' Sunny 
South Saloon,' erected by Captain Mat. Scott, nearly 
opposite the church. Captain Scott has spared no 
expense in the furnishing of this saloon, which pro- 
mises to be one of the most agreeable places of resort 
in old Tuolumne. He has recently imported two new 
first-class billiard tables with cork cushions. Our old 
friend ' Mountain Jimmy ' will dispense liquors at the 
bar. We refer our readers to the advertisement in 
another column. Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do 
better than give ' Jinuny ' a call," Among the local 
items occurred the following : " H. J. York, Esq., of 
Sandy Bar, has offered a reward of one hundred dol- 
lars for the detection of the parties who hauled away 

62 



'STRUGGLING " 

the steps of the new Presbyterian Church, C Street, 
Sandy Bar, during divine service on Sabbath evening 
last. Captain Scott adds another hundred for the 
capture of the miscreants who broke the magnificent 
plate-glass windows of the new saloon on the follow- 
ing evening. There is some talk of reorganising the 
old Vigilance Committee at Sandy Bar." 

This placid blending of '* County Improvements," 
and consequent " Local Items," is delicious. 

Having mastered the art of printing, and gleaned 
some useful information as to editorial tactics, Bret 
Harte became a schoolmaster, and no doubt among his 
pupils (he has mentioned many of them) were the 
immortal Mliss and the fascinating Cressy. 

In his works he faithfully depicts himself as the 
conscientious young tutor trying to impress unon 
listless ears the lessons that they loathed. It is a 
pathetic little sketch of the poor "Master" sitting at 
his uncongenial task in the primitive little schoolroom 
at " Smith's Pocket " with some open copy-books 
before him, carefully making those bold and full 
characters which are supposed to combine the extremes 
of chirographical and moral excellence ; and who had 
got so far as " Biches are Deceitful," and was elabor- 
ating the noun with an insincerity of flourish that 
was quite in the spirit of his text, when he heard 
a gentle tapping at the door. His interrupter was 
sweet Mliss, and then, as if by the wave of a 
magician's wand, the dreariness of the uninviting 
schoolhouse vanishes. 

Again he conjures up a primitive "academy," 

63 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

which he entered with " a certain precaution begot- 
ten of his experience in once finding a small but 
sociable rattlesnake coiled up near the threshold. A 
slight disturbance which followed his intrusion showed 
the value of that precaution and the fact that the 
room had already been used for various private and 
peaceful gatherings of animated nature. An irregular 
attendance of yellow birds and squirrels dismissed 
themselves hurriedly through the broken floor and 
windows, but a golden lizard, stiffened suddenly into 
stony fright on the edge of an open arithmetic, 
touched the heart of the master so strongly by its 
resemblance to some kept-in and forgotten scholar who 
had succumbed over the task he could not accomplish, 
that he was seized with compunction." 

And then the description of the weary, dreary 
school time which " continued for two hours with short 
sighs, corrugations of small foreheads, the complaining 
cries and scratching of slate-pencils over slates, and 
other signs of minor anguish among the more youthful 
of the flock ; and with more or less whisperings, move- 
ments of the lips, and unconscious soliloquy among the 
older pupils. The master moved slowly up and down 
the aisle with a word of explanation or encouragement 
here and there, stopping with his hands behind 
him to gaze abstractedly out of the windows, 
to the wondering envy of the little ones. A 
faint hum, as of invisible insects, gradually pervaded 
the school ; the more persistent droning of a large bee 
had become dangerously soporific. The hot breath of 

the pines without had invaded the doors and windows ; 

64 



"STRUGGLING" 

the warped shingles and weather-boarding at times 
creaked and snapped under the rays of the vertical 
and unclouded sun. A gentle perspiration broke out 
like a mild epidemic in the infant class ; little curls 
became damp, long lashes limp, round eyes moist, and 
small eyelids heavy." 

Poor young schoolmaster ! One does not like to 
think of his talents being squandered on such work as 
this ; and one sympathises with him when, relating 
another of these experiences, he says : " The little 
pioneer settlement school, of which I was/ the some- 
what youthful and, I fear, the not over competent 
master, was State-aided only to a limited extent ; and 
as the bulk of the expense was borne by a few families 
in its vicinity, when two of them — representing per- 
haps a dozen children or pupils — one morning an- 
nounced their intention of moving to a more prosperous 
and newer district, the school was incontinently closed. 
In twenty-four hours I found myself destitute alike 
of my flock and my vocation. I am afraid I regretted 
the former the most. Some of the children I had 
made my companions and friends ; and as I stood that 
bright May morning before the empty little bark- 
thatched schoolhouse in the wilderness, it was with 
an odd sensation that our little summer ' play ' at 
being schoolmaster and pupil was over. Indeed, I 
remember distinctly that a large hunk of gingerbread 
— a parting gift from a prize scholar a year older than 
1 my self — stood me in good stead in my future wan- 
derings, for I was alone in the world at that moment, 
and constitutionally improvident." 

65 E 



FIRST FLIGHTS: 

But to these somewhat sordid scholastic days we 
owe some of his brightest and most charming charac- j 
ters. It was always the same with him. Wherever 
he went or whatever he did, he always — and no doubt I 
at that early period of his life, unconsciously — stored | 
away golden material for use in the years to come. | 
He gathered in his Californian harvest quickly, but I 
its rich grain was abundant and never failed him. 

There were soldiering days, too. In the warfare 
with the Indians he fought through two campaigns 
to a staff appointment, and I may as well mention 
here as elsewhere that when the American Civil War 
broke out he joined the Volunteer City Guard of San 
Francisco, as a reservist. He was always ready to 
serve his country, and was rather proud of his diploma 
of Colonel in the Army of the Potomac. His ex- 
periences with the Indians have been fully utilised 
in his glowing pages, and he has left us sketches as 
vivid and striking as that of Washington Irving's 
" Philip of Pokanoket." Notably there is a weird 
study of Indian life in his fine story, " The Ancestors 
of Peter Atherley." But his wandering days came 
to an early end, and he was still quite a young man 
when he returned to San Francisco determined to 
settle down to some definite calling. He had learnt 
the truth of John Stuart Mill's words : " Human 
existence is girt round with mystery ; the narrow 
region of our experience is a small island in the midst 
of a boundless sea." But the " island " he had ex- 
plored was, in more senses than one, full of precious 
things, and he must have been conscious that he was 

66 



'STRUGGLING" 

bringing some of them home with him, even if he had 
not yet made up his mind how to use them. Truly 
his old and devoted friend, Mr. Charles Warren 
Stoddard, said : — 

"It was a lucky fate that drove Bret Harte 
afield when he was all eyes, when his wits were 
wide-awake, and he had a healthy, youthful thirst 
for adventure. He bore a charmed life. Probably 
his youth was his salvation, for he ran a thousand 
risks, yet seemed only to gain in health and spirits ; 
and all the while he was unconsciously accumulating 
the most valuable material that could fall to the lot 
of a writer — the lights and shadows, the colour, the 
details of a life unique, as brief as it was brilliant, 
and one never to be lived again under the sun or 
stars." 

California, Mr. Stoddard tells us, was picturesque 
once upon a time; the life there and then was de- 
lightful, audacious, perhaps at times devihsh ; there 
xvas not much repose in camp or town, but there 
was enough and to spare in the wide verandahs of 
the sun-backed haciendas and In the attenuated vistas 
of the mission cloisters. 

But Bret Harte was weary of it all. He was, 
indeed, " glutted with adventurous experiences." His 
mind was full of all that he had seen among miners, 
Spaniards, express coachmen, road-agents, gamblers, 
Chinese, and their bewildering surroundings. For 
some time he had been fascinated with them, but 
the day came when he longed for a home. 

67 



CHAPTER III 

m LIFE'S STREAM : " SWIMMING " 

Advisedly, if somewhat fantastically, I have labelled 
my three opening chapters. Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, of whose work it need hardly be said Bret 
Harte was an ardent admirer, once asked him if he 
found the writing of verse come easily to him. Bret 
Harte, who was fond of telling this story to his 
friends, said, that the opening lines often gave him 
sore trouble, but when they had been composed the 
rest of the task seemed an easy one. " That's it," 
said Holmes, with a fellow - feeling for a brother 
poet ; "we flounder and struggle about in the 
stream for a time, and then, when we are not look- 
ing for it, a wave comes up from behind, takes us 
off our feet, and then we swim." 

Now it seems to me that this applies to Bret 
Harte's life. He had floundered, he had struggled, 
and now, with a strong, unerring stroke, he was 
to swim. 

" Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the 
highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties 
and outward circumstances both duly considered, 
and then do it." 

Some such thoughts as these must have been 
in Bret Harte's mind when, with the full memory 

68 



"SWIMMING' 

of his printing experiences in view, he returned to 
San Francisco and sought employment. 

Here Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard very kindly 
permits me to let him take up the tale. 

" The vicissitudes of Bret Harte," he says, " were 
destined to become his stock-in-trade, and when he 
somehow drifted into the composing-room of the once 
famous paper, The Golden Era, he naturally began 
to contribute to its columns. The Goldeoi Era was 
the cradle and the grave of many a high hope — 
there was nothing to be compared with it that side 
of the Mississippi ; and though it could point with 
pride — it never failed to do so — to a somewhat notable 
list of contributors, it had always the fine air of the 
amateur, and was most complacently patronising. 
The very pattern of paternal patronage was amiable 
Joe Lawrence, its editor. He was an inveterate pipe- 
smoker, a pillar of cloud as he sat in his editorial 
chair, first floor front, on the south side of Clay 
Street, below Montgomery ; an air of literary mystery 
enveloped him. He spoke as an oracle, and I re- 
member his calling my attention to a certain anony- 
mous contribution, just received, and nodding his 
head prophetically, for. he already had his eye on 
its fledgeling author, a young compositor on the floor 
above. It was Bret Harte's first appearance in The 
Golden Era, and doubtless Lawrence encouraged him 
as he had encouraged me when, out of the mist 
about him, he handed me, secretly, and with a glance of 
caution — for his business partner, the marble-hearted, 
Isat at his ledger not far away — he handed me a 

I 69 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

folded paper on which he had written this startling 
legend : ' Write some prose for The Golde^i Era and 
I will give you a dollar a column.' I had not yet 
outgrown a bad habit of verse-making, had never 
been paid a farthing for anything I had published, 
and the brightening prospect dazzled and confused me. 

" Before Bret Harte ceased to write for The 
Golden Era he had gained sufficient self-confidence 
to sign his contributions ' B.' or ' Bret.' ' Mliss ' was 
first printed in those columns, and Joe Lawrence 
was filled with Olympian laughter when he exhibited 
a handsome specially-designed woodcut heading, which 
he had ordered for that charming tale. Mark Twain 
and Prentice Mulford became known through the 
columns of The Golden Era. Joaquin Miller wrote 
for it from the backwood depths of his youthful 
obscurity." 

But during those early days of authorship Bret 
Harte did more than this. He fell in love and got 
married. The lady was Miss Anna Griswold, and in 
the days of his courtship he was wont, in humorous 
fashion, to drop into poetry, as witness the following : 

SERENADE 

{^Adapted to the latitude of San, Francisco). 

" O list, lady, list ! while thy lover outside 

Pours forth those fond accents that thrill thee ; 
list ! both thy doors and thy windows beside 

For fear that some thorough draught chill thee. 
The ' sweet summer morn's ' hanging low in the sky, 

And the fog's drifting wildly around me ; 
There is damp in my throat, there is sand in my eye, 
And my old friend Neuralgia has found me. 
70 



'SWIMMING " 

O list, lady, list ! ere this thin searching mist 

Subdues all my amorous frenzy ; 
The Pleiads' ' soft influence ' here is, I wist, 

Replaced by the harsh influenza ; 
And now, lady sweet, I must bid thee ' good-night,' 

A night that would quench Hymen's torch, love, 
For a lute by the fire is much more polite. 

Than a song and catarrh in the porch, love." 

The marriage took place at San E-afael, on August 
nth, 1862, the officiating minister being the Rev. 
Harry Gilbert of the Methodist Church. 

Following his usual plan, Bret Harte, notwith- 
standing the encouragement that had been given him 
by the editor of The Golden Era, did not mean to 
depend only on his pen. When he first met his 
wife he was in the General Surveyor's Office of San 
Francisco, and later he was to receive a more im- 
portant appointment. No doubt it was the know- 
ledge that he had these second strings to his bow 
that made him feel justified in marrying. 

In those first boyish impressions of California to 
which I have alluded in these pages he said : "I 
recall another incident connected with the building ^ 
equally characteristic of the period. The United 
States Branch Mint stood very near it, and its tall, 
factory-like chimneys overshadowed my cousin's roof. 
Some scandal had arisen from an illegal leakage of 
gold in the manipulation of that metal during the 
various processes of smelting and refining. One of 
the excuses offered was the volatilisation of the 

1 His relative's semi-restaurant home. 
71 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

precious metal and its escape through the draft of 

the tall chimneys. All San Francisco laughed at this 

explanation until it learned that a corroboration of 

the theory had been established by an assay of the 

dust and grime of the roofs in the vicinity of the 

Mint, These had yielded distinct traces of gold. 

San Francisco stopped laughing, and that portion of 

it which had roofs in the neighbourhood at once began 

prospecting. Claims were staked out on these airy 

placers (diggings), and my cousin's roof being the very 

next one to the chimney, and presumably ' in the 

lead,' was disposed of to a speculative company for a 

considerable sum. I remember my cousin telling me 

the story — for the occurrence was quite recent — and 

taking me with him to the roof to explain it, but I 

am afraid I was more attracted by the mystery of 

the closely-guarded building and the strangely-tinted 

smoke which arose from this temple where money was 

actually being ' made ' than by anything else. Nor did 

I dream as I stood there — a very lanky, open-mouthed 

youth — that only three or four years later I should be 

the secretary of its superintendent. In my more 

adventurous ambition I am afraid I would have 

accepted the suggestion half-heartedly. Merely to 

have helped to stamp the gold which other people 

had adventurously found was by no means a part of 

my youthful dreams." 

In the more sedate days of his early married life 

he took to his secretarial duties very contentedly, 

and, happily, did not find them too exacting. Mr. 

Swain, the Superintendent of the Mint, liked him, 

72 



"SWIMMING" 

and, being interested in his literary achievements, 
allowed him as much leisure as possible. Bret Harte 
did not resign his appointment at the Mint until some 
change of Government caused Mr. Swain to make 
way for another superintendent. The tasks allotted 
to the young secretary were always carefully per- 
formed ; but in every moment he could call his own 
he let his fancy run freely, and diligently wrought at 
his poems and stories. 

On 28th May 1864, Mr. Stoddart tells me, the 
first number of The Californian was issued by Charles 
Henry Webb, its editor and proprietor. This was 
the famous weekly of which Mr. W. D. Howells, in 
an article on Mark Twain, has said : — 

" I think Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain) has not 
mentioned his association with that extraordinary 
group of wits and poets, of whom Mr. Bret Harte, 
Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, Mr. Charles Henry 
Webb, and Mr. Prentice Mulford were, with himself, 
the most conspicuous. These ingenuous young men, 
with the fatuity of gifted people, had established 
a literary newspaper in San Francisco, and they 
brilliantly co-operated to its early extinction." 

Mr. Stoddard, it should be mentioned, published 
the first book of genuine poetry in California. 

Bret Harte has himself told the story of how in 
his " Mint " days he first met his famous brother 
humorist, " Mark Twain." His friend and journal- 
istic colleague, Mr. George Barnes, called upon him 
to introduce a young man whose appearance was 
decidedly impressive. " His head," he wrote, " was 

73 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

striking. He had the curly hair, the aquiline nose, 
and even the aquiline eye — an eye so eagle-like that 
a second lid would not have surprised me — of an 
unusual and dominant nature. His eyebrows were 
very thick and bushy. His dress was careless, and 
his general manner one of supreme indifference to 
surroundings and circumstances. Barnes introduced 
him as Mr. Sam. Clemens, and remarked that he had 
shown a very unusual talent in a number of news- 
papers contributed over the signature of ' Mark 
Twain.' We talked on different topics, and about a 
month afterwards Clemens dropped in upon me again. 
He had been away in the mining districts on some 
newspaper assignment in the meantime. In the 
course of conversation he remarked that the unearthly 
laziness that prevailed in the town he had been visit- 
ing was beyond anything in his previous experience. 
He said the men did nothing all day long but sit 
around the bar-room stove, spit, and ' swop lies.' He 
spoke in a slow, rather satirical drawl, which was in 
itself irresistible. He went on to tell one of those 
extravagant stories, and half unconsciously dropped 
into the lazy tone and manner of the original nar- 
rator. I asked him to tell it again to a friend who 
came in, and then asked him to write it out for The 
Californian. He did so, and when published it was 
an emphatic success. It was the first work of his 
that had attracted general attention, and it crossed 
the Sierras for an Eastern reading. The story was 
^ The Jumping Frog of Calaveras.' It is now known 
and laughed over, I suppose, wherever the English 

74 



^SWIMMING" 

language is spoken ; but it will never be as funny 
to any one in print as it was to me, told for the first 
time by the unknown Twain himself on that morning 
in the San Francisco Mint." 

It was, no doubt, through this introduction that 
Mark Twain became a welcome contributor not only 
to The Californian but to The Golden Era. One 
scrap of characteristic art criticism from his pen that 
appeared in the columns of the last-named journal 
has been preserved. It deals with a famous picture, 
" Samson and Delilah," then being exhibited in San 
Francisco, and it runs as follows : " Now what is the 
first thing you see in looking at this picture down 
at the Bank Exchange ? Is it the gleaming eye and 
fine face of Samson ? or the muscular Philistine gazing 
furtively at the lovely Delilah ? or is it the rich 
drapery ? or is it the truth to nature in that pretty 
foot ? No, sir. The first thing that catches the 
eye is the scissors on the floor at her feet. Them/ 
scissors is too modern ; thar warn't no scissors like 
them in them days — by a d — d sight." 

Mr. Stoddard informs me that the first article 
that appeared in The Californian was " Neighbour--'^ 
hoods I have Moved From, by a Hypochondriac. No. 
One." It was followed by " The Ballad of the Emeu." 
Each is Bret Harte's ; both are unsigned ; but they 
are acknowledged to-day in his collected works. The 
" Condensed Novels," which he began in The Golden 
Era, were continued in The Californian. To that 
highly interesting periodical he contributed many 
poems, grave and gay, sketches, essays, editorials, 

75 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

and book reviews ; some of the latter were clever bits 
of verse. Occasionally one finds the name " Francis 
Bret Harte," or perhaps " Bret," or only " H." at- 
tached to a piece of prose or verse ; many of his 
contributions are unsigned, and much of the admir- 
able work he did then is now of no avail on account 
of its purely local and ephemeral character. 

While he was on terms of close intimacy with his 
literary comrades, Bret Harte was making other 
friends. He had attracted the attention of Mrs. 
General Fremont — the wife of " The Pathfinder " — 
who introduced him to Thomas Starr King, an emi- 
nent man of letters and a famous Unitarian preacher, 
who also saw and predicted the brilliant future that 
lay before the eager but anxious young man. These 
became his warm friends, advisers, and encouragers, 
and it was under King's presidency that his soul- 
stirring poem, " The Beveille," was, while the great 
Civil War was raging, recited in public. 

Every admirer of Bret Harte knows the lilt of 
the wonderful lines, commencing with : — 

" Hark ! I hear the tramp of thousands, 
And of armed men the hum ; 
Lo ! a nation's hosts have gathered 
Round the quick alarming drum — 
Saying, ' Come, 
Freemen, come ! 
Ere your heritage be wasted,' said the 
quick alarming drum ; " 

knows how the hearts of the hesitating and even the 

76 




"SWIMMING" 

recreant are probed until the verses wind up with 
the grand peroration : — 

" Thus they answered, hoping, fearing, 
Some in faith, and doubting some, 
Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming, 
Said, ' My chosen people, come ! ' 

Then the drum, Q^^J^^ 

Lo ! was dumb, 
For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, 
answered, ' Lord, we come ! ' " 

These noble lines have aroused enthusiasm in 
thousands of readers, and I was amazed when their 
author told me that at their first public recitation, 
to his intense disappointment, they seemed to make 
little or no impression. Happily he lived to know 
how they lived, and were likely to live, as long as 
poetry is understood and appreciated. 

Under the influence of Thomas Starr King he be- 
came a Unitarian, but in later years, I think, he was 
content to worship God through His works. But 
though in matters of religion he held his own broad- 
minded views, he never wanted to argue or find fault 
with those who cherished more orthodox opinions. He 
hated anything like cant or narrow-mindedness, but 
while he marvelled at some of the creeds professed by 
others, I never heard him speak slightingly of any one 
of them, and he strongly maintained that if they 
helped men and women to lead upright and useful 
lives they one and all did glorious work. The only 
thing he disliked about religion was the interference 

77 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

of busybodies with their friends' and neighbours 
A views. Over this he could grow very angry. 

He was a believer in science, but he held with 
Herbert Spencer that " so far from science being 
irreligious as many think, it is the neglect of science 
that is irreligious — it is the refusal to study surround- 
ing creation that is irreligious." 

When Thomas Starr King died Bret Harte paid 
more than one tribute to his memory. Witness the 
beautiful little poem : — 

KELIEVING GUARD. 

T.S.K. OUit March 4fh, 1864. 

" Came the relief, 'What, sentry, ho ! 

How passed the night through thy long waking ? ' 
' Cold, cheerless, dark, as may befit 

The hour before the dawn is breaking.' 

' No sight ? No sound ? ' * No ; nothing save 

The plover from the marshes calling, 
And in yon western sky, about 

An hour ago, a star was falling.' 

' A star ? There's nothing strange in that,' 

' No, nothing ; but above the thicket, 
Somehow it seemed to me that God 

Somewhere had just relieved a picket,' " 

His second son was named after his dead but 
never-forgotten friend. Francis King Harte, to whom 
I am indebted for much friendly help in the compila- 
tion of these pages, was born at San Francisco on 
March 5th, 1865, 

In 1865 Bret Harte's first volume of verse appeared. 

78 



-SWIMMING" 

It bore the title of " The Lost Galleon " — a beautifully- 
conceived and perfectly-executed poem, but it also 
contained various contributions to the lyrics of the 
Civil War, and some humorous pieces destined to 
become world-famous. Writing of him at this period, 
his old colleague, Mr. Noah Brooks, has said : " Harte 
always manifested in his work that fastidiousness in 
choice of words which has characterised him ever since. 
It was humorously complained of him that he filled 
the newspaper office wastepaper baskets with his self- 
rejected manuscripts and produced next to nothing for 
the printer. Once, assigned to the task of writing 
an obituary article that was not to exceed ' two stick- 
fuls' in length, he actually filled the wastepaper 
basket with fragments of ' copy ' which he tore up 
before he produced the requisite amount of matter. 
Going into my own editorial room early one forenoon, 
I found Harte at my desk writing a little note to 
make an appointment with me to dine together 
later in the day. Seeing me he started up with the 
remark that my early arrival at the office would 
obviate the necessity of his finishing the note which 
he was writing, and which he tore up as he spoke. 
When, this little matter settled, Harte had gone out, 
crumbling in his hands the fragments of the unfinished 
note, I chanced to look into the wastepaper basket, 
and saw a litter of paper carrying Harte's familiar 
handwriting, and turning over the basket w^ith quiet 
amusement, I discovered that he had left there 
the rejected manuscript of no less than three sum- 
monses, which any other man would have disposed of 

79 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

in something like this order : ' Dear Brooks, — We 
will dine together at Louis Dingeon's at 6.30 p.m. 
to-night.' " 

Mr. Densmore, a colleague of Bret Harte's on the 
literary staff of Tlie Golden Era, has said : " While I 
was writing column after column, Bret Harte would be 
sitting looking at his desk. And finally he would 
evolve a paragraph, but that paragraph would be 
worth everything else in the paper." 

This extreme care in authorship characterised him 
throughout his life. How often have I seen him, 
paper before him and pen in hand, " looking at his 
desk," sometimes at the very desk on which I now 
write these lines, and then after long periods of 
apparent abstraction, the thoughts would be knitted 
together, and the pen begin to flow. 

Since Bret Harte's death, Mr. Noah Brooks has 
added to these early-day recollections of his friend. 

" Scores of writers," he says, " have become known 

to me in the course of a long life, but I have never 

known another so fastidious and so laborious as Bret 

Harte. His writing materials, the light and heat, and 

even the adjustment of the furniture of the writing 

room, must be as he desired, otherwise he could not 

get on with his work. Even when his environment 

was all that he could wish, there were times when the 

divine afflatus would not come and the day's work 

must be abandoned. My editorial rooms in San 

Francisco were not far from his secluded den, and 

often, if he opened my door late in the afternoon, with 

a peculiar cloud on his face, I knew that he had come 

80 



"SWIMMING" 

to wait for me to go to dinner with him, having 
given up the impossible task of writing when the 
mood was not on him. 'It's no use, Brooks,' he 
would say. ' Everything goes wrong ; I cannot write 
a Ime. Let's have an early dinner at Martini's.' 
As soon as I was ready we would go merrily off to 
dine together, and, having recovered his equanimity, 
he would stick to his desk through the later hours of 
the night, slowly forging those masterpieces which 
cost him so dearly." 

So curiously at variance with the rough life that 
he had been leading were these suddenly acquired 
niceties of taste that they might appear incredible. 
But they always remained with him, and many of his 
later friends must have marvelled, as I have done, to 
hear a man whose one idea of life was the quintes- 
sence of refinement, relate the rough adventures, and 
the almost squalid surroundings of his youthful Cali- 
fornian days. He had undergone far coarser expe- 
riences than he ever put into his stories, or than I can 
relate here. 

Speaking of him at this period, another famous 
American writer, Joaquin Miller, says : " On reaching 
San Francisco, I went at once to Stoddard, and he 
took me to Harte. I found a spare, slim young man, 
m a chip hat and a summer dress of the neatest and 
•lattiest cut, who took me cordially into his confidence 
it once. I Hked his low voice, his quiet, earnest, and 
anafiected manner from the first. He had neat edi- 
torial rooms, where he made me welcome, although he 
*vas then engaged as Secretary in the Mint. ... I 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

think he was the cleanest man I ever met. He was 
always as clean, modest, and graceful of speech as a 
girl." 

And this was the man who had but recently 
laboured and camped out with the gold-diggers, 
undergone the perils of the stage expressman, and 
begrimed himself with slumguUion and printer's ink ! 
Joaquin Miller summed up his new acquaintance well. 
The keen sense and love of delicacy that he at once 
detected was inherent in the character of Bret Harte. 

In July 1868, when The Overland Monthly was 
founded, Bret Harte became its editor. Concerning 
this appointment Mr. E-ounsevelle Wildman, the editor 
of The Overland Monthly, New Series, has written : 
" When Anton Boman made up his mind to establish 
a monthly magazine in connection with his publishing 
and bookselling business, he did so with the advice of 
Noah Brooks, Charles Warren Stoddard, B. B. Bedding, 
W. C. Bartlett, and others, for most of whom he had 
already published books. When the question of a 
suitable editor arose Stoddard recommended Bret 
Harte, then an almost unknown writer on The Golden 
Era, at that time a popular weekly. Bret Harte 
accepted, with some misgivings as to financial matters, 
but was reassured when Boman showed him pledges of ; 
support by advertising patronage up to nine hundred 
dollars a month, which he had secured in advance." 

The embryo editor was also assured that his old 

literary colleagues would " turn in and help him." 

Thus encouraged he set to work, and in due course 

the first number appeared. It was plainly and unos- 

82 



Only Magazine Published 

on the Pacilic Coast 




'T ALL NE'WSDEALERS 

^5 Cents a Co/>y 
$J00 a Year 



HOLIDAY NUMBER 

Overland 
Monthly 




DECEMBER, 1896 



Overland Moiulily Puhlishiug Compauy 

SAN FRANCISCO 



The Bear ou the Tlnihrdij Ti-iicl:.''' I'hc sipnhol (Icsifpicd lii/ lliet Ihiiie 
for tin' first jiunihrr nf tlic '' Orerlaiui Slontlily." He described the 
shetcli on the left as "The Original ! " ^' None othera are (fenuine ! " 
Tlxit on the riijlit as " Later variation, after B. H. left the editor- 
ship." The sijinhol is still used, and " llie Original " retains its 
flace. 

[To face p. 8'2. 



"SWIMMING" 

tentatiously got up in a neat drab cover, bearing the 
title— 

THE OVERLAND MONTHLY 

DEVOTED TO 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY, 

and bore for its emblem a small vignette of a bear 
crossing a railway track. This design was the work 
of Bret Harte, and was intended to show how the 
"grizzly" [Ursus horribilis), so long the undisturbed 
monarch of the woods and canons, was at last face to 
face with the ubiquitous engineer. 

Bret Harte was rather proud of this symbol, and 
had it engraved on his seal. Showing it to me one 
day, he said : " You see the bear is shown standing 
on the track apparently arrested by the approach of 
the (invisible) train, and rather resenting it. He is, 
however, rather ' at gaze ' than ' at bay.' That was 
my idea, the beginning of the conflict between bar- 
barian and civilisation." 

He had had his own alarming adventures with the 
" grizzly," but he always spoke of him with a sort of 
pitying contempt, and I verily believe he entertained 
some affection for the strange animal so wonderfully 
described in his lines — 

" Coward of heroic size, 
In whose lazy muscle lies 
Strength we fear and yet despise ; 
Savage — whose relentless tusks 
Are content with acorn husks ; 
Robber — whose exploits ne'er soared 
O'er the bee or squirrel's hoard ; 

83 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

Whiskered chin and feeble nose, 
Claws of steel on baby toes — 
Here in solitude and shade, 
Shambling, shuffling, plantigrade, 
Be thy courses undismayed. 

Here, where Nature makes thy bed. 
Let thy rude half-human tread 
Point to hidden Indian springs 
Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses. 
Hovered o'er by timid wings. 
Where the wood-duck lightly passes, 
Where the wild bee holds her sweets. 
Epicurean retreats, 
Fit for thee and better than 
Fearful spoils of dangerous man. 

In thy fat-jowled deviltry 
Fiiar Tuck shall live with thee ; 
Thou may'st levy tithe and dole ; 
Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer. 
From the pilgrim taking toll ; 
Match thy cunning with his fear ; 
Eat and drink, and have thy fill. 
Yet remain an outlaw still." 

But to return to The Overland Monthly. At the 
onset there were not many writers of fiction on the 
staff, and Bret Harte and Mr. Noah Brooks agreed 
that they would each write a short story for the first 
number of the new magazine. They had four months 
to prepare for the great event, but the first issue of 
The Overland (July 1868) had only one story in its 
contents, and that was by Mr. Brooks. Bret Harte, 
with many sighs and groans, confessed that he had 
been unable to finish the first short story ("Mliss" 

84 



' 



"SWIMMING " 

had been a comparatively long one, and, I think, when 
it was reprinted abbreviations were made in it) that 
he had ever undertaken in his life. But he had com- 
posed a charming — if daring — little poem for the initial 
number. It was entitled " San Francisco from the 
Sea," and from it I may quote the following lines : — 

" Serene, indifferent of Fate, 
Thou sittest at the Western Gate ; 

Upon thy height, so lately won, 
Still slant the banners of the sun ; 

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents 
O Warder of two Continents ! 



Oh, lion's whelp, that hidest fast 
In jungle growth of spiie and mast ! 

I know thy cunning and thy greed. 
Thy hard high lust and wilful deed. 

And all thy glory has to tell 
Of specious gifts material. 

Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide 
Her sceptic sneer and all her pride ! 

Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood 
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood. 

Hide me her faidts, lior sin and blame ; 
With thy grey mantle cloak her shame ! 

So shall she, cowled, sit and pray 
Till morning bears her sins away. 

85 



IN LIFE'S STREAM 

Then rise, Fleecy Fog, and raise 
The glory of her coming days ; 



When Art shall raise and Culture lift 
The sensual joys and meaner thrift, 

And all fulfilled the vision we 

Who watch and wait shall never see, 

Who in the morning of hei' race, 
Toiled fair or meanly in our place, 

But yielding to the common lot, 
Lie unrecorded and forgot." 

Considering that when Bret Harte penned these 
ringing and somewhat scathing couplets he was Hving 
in San Francisco, it was bold to speak so fearlessly of 
his environment. He was soon to learn that he, at 
least, was not to " lie unrecorded and forgot." 

His first short story, when it did appear, in the 
X second number of the Overland Monthly (August 1868), 
created a sensation. It was " The Luck of Roaring/^ 
Camp." A copy of the magazine containing it, and 
always cherished by the author, is before me as I 
write these lines. The story only occupies a few of 
its pages, and it is unheralded and unsigned, but it 
moved the reading world in no uncertain way. 

Bret Harte had told his intimate friends that it was 

his ambition to become the founder of a characteristic 

Western literature, and he confessed in later years 

to a very early half-boyish, but always enthusiastic, 

belief in such a thing being possible, a belief that 

never deserted him until he convinced the world that 

86 



I 



"SWIMMING' 

it had become a reality. But he had to reckon with 
fearful odds. Prophets are not in their own country 
received with open arms, and the Californians in 
those days were inclined to pin their faith in Eastern 
writers. " The illustrated and satirical journals," he 
afterwards declared, " were as frequently seen in 
California as in Massachusetts, and he had often 
experienced more difficulty in procuring a copy of our 
English Punch in a British provincial town than at 
4 ' Bed Dog' or ' One Horse Gulch.' " It was, he 
thought, because " Home " was still potent with these 
voluntary exiles in their moments of relaxation, and 
it was for this reason he had to fight against the 
firmly riveted armour of the demon of prejudice. 

In " The Luck of Bearing Camp " he well and 
truly laid the foundation-stone of his fame ; it was 
the turning-point of his career, but, like most turning- 
points, it presented many difficulties. Here he shall 
speak for himself: — 

" When the first number of The Overland Monthly 

appeared," he wrote, " the author, then its editor, 

called the publisher's attention to the lack of any 

distinctive Californian romance in its pages, and 

averred that, should no other contribution come in, 

he himself would supply the omission in the next 

I number. No other contribution was offered, and the 

I author, having the plot and general idea already in 

I his mind, in a few days sent the manuscript of ' The 

Luck of Boaring Camp ' to the printer. He had not 

yet received the proof sheets when he was suddenly 

summoned to the office of the publisher, whom he 

87 



IN LIFE'S STREAM : 

found standing the picture of dismay and anxiety, 
with the proof before him. The indignation and 
stupefaction of the author can be well understood 
when he was told that the printer, instead of return- 
ing the proofs to him, submitted them to the 
publisher, with the emphatic declaration that the 
jikUiatter thereof was so indecent, irreligious, and 
improper, that his proof-reader — a young lady — had 
with difficulty been induced to continue its perusal, 
and that he, as a friend of the publisher, and a well- 
wisher of the magazine, was impelled to present to 
him personally this shameless evidence of the manner 
in which the editor was imperilling the future of that 
enterprise. It should be premised that the critic was 
a man of character and standing, the head of a large 
printing establishment, a church member, and, the 
author thinks, a deacon. In which circumstances the 
publisher frankly admitted to the author that, while 
he could not agree with all the printer's criticisms, he 
thought the story open to grave objection, and its 
publication of doubtful exjDediency." 

I wonder if at that irritating moment Bret Harte's 
mind wandered wistfully back to one of those primi- 
tive Californian newspaper offices which he knew and 
) described so well, where " the little wooden building 
( had invaded Nature without subduing it. It was 
/ filled night and day with the murmur of pines and 
j their fragrance. Squirrels scampered over its roof 
(, when it was not preoccupied by woodpeckers, and a 
printer's devil had once seen a nest-building jay enter 
the composing window, flutter before one of the slant- 



SWIMMING" 

ing type cases with an air of deliberate selection, and 
then fly off with a vowel in its bill." 

Truly then the editor was monarch of all he 
surveyed. 

Of the totally unexpected and exasperating San 
Francisco incident his narrative continues as follows : — 
" Believing only that he was the victim of some 
extraordinary typographical blu^ider, the author at 
once sat down and read the proof In its new dress, 
with the metamorphosis of type — that metamorphosis 
which every author so well knows changes his relation 
to it and makes it no longer seem a part of himself — 
he was able to read it with something of the fresh- 
ness of an untold tale. As he read on he found 
himself affected even as he had been affected 
in the conception and writing of it — a feeling 
so incompatible with the charges against it that he 
I could only lay it down and declare emphatically, 
j albeit hopelessly, that he could really see nothing 
I objectionable in it. Other opinions were sought and 
'; given. To the author's surprise, he found himself in 
I the minority. Finally the story was submitted to 
three gentlemen of culture and experience, friends of ^ 
publisher and author, who were unable, however, to 
>come to any clear decision. It was, however, sug- 
.1 gested to the author that, assuming the natural 
hypothesis that his editorial reasoning might be 
warped by his literary predilections in a consideration 
» of one of his own productions, a personal sacrifice 
would at this juncture be in the last degree heroic. 
This last suggestion had the effect of ending all 

89 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

further discussion ; for he at once informed the 
pubUsher that the question of the propriety of the 
story was no longer at issue ; the only question was of 
his capacity to exercise the proper editorial judgment ; 
and that unless he was permitted to test that capacity 
by the publication of the story, and abide squarely by 
the result, he must resign his QHifcrlal position. The 
publisher, possibly stiuYjc' svfth the author's confidence, 
possibly from kindli.i'dss of disposition to a younger 
man, yielded, and ' The Luck of Roaring Camp ' was 
published in the current number of the magazine for 
which it was written, as it was written, without 
emendation, omission, alteration, or apology. A no in- 
considerable part of the grotesqueness of the situation 
was the feeling, which the author retained through- 
out the whole affair, of the perfect sincerity, good 
faith, and seriousness of his friend's — the printer's — 
objection, and for many days thereafter he was haunted 
by a consideration of the sufferings of this conscientious 
man, obliged to assist materially in disseminating the 
dangerous and subversive doctrines contained in this 
baleful fiction. What solemn protests must have been 
laid with the ink on the rollers and impressed upon 
those wicked sheets ! what pious warnings must have 
been secretly folded and stitched in that number of 
The Overland Monthly ! Across the chasm of years 
and distance the author stretches forth the hand of 
forgiveness, not forgetting the gentle proof-reader, 
that chaste and unknown nymph whose mantling 
cheeks and downcast eyes gave the first indications 

of warning." 

90 



"SWIMMING" 

Mr. Noah Brooks has recorded this curious episode 
as follows : — 

" Perhaps I may be pardoned," he says, " for a 
brief reference to an odd complication that arose 
while ' The Luck of Boaring Camp ' was being put 
into type in the printing office where The Overland 
Monthly was prepared for publication. A young 
lady who served as proof-reader in the establishment 
had been somewhat shocked by the scant morals of 
the mother of the Luck, and when she came to the 
scene where Kentuck, after reverently fondling the 
infant, said ' he wrastled with my finger, the d — d 
little cuss,' the indignant proof-reader was ready to 
throw up her engagement rather than go any further 
with a story so wicked and immoral ! There was 
consternation throughout the establishment, and the 
head of the concern went to the office of the publisher 
with the virginal proof-reader's protest. Unluckily 
Mr. Boman was absent from the city. Harte, when 
notified of the obstacle raised in the way of ' The 
Luck of Boaring Camp,' manfully insisted that the 
story must be printed as he wrote it, or not at all. 
Mr. Boman's locum tenens in despair brought the 
objectionable manuscript around to my office and 
asked my advice. When I had read the sentence 
that had caused all this turmoil, having first listened 
to the tale of the much-bothered temporary publisher, 
I surprised him by a burst of laughter. It seemed 
to me incredible that such a tempest in a teacup 
could have been raised by Harte's bit of character 
sketching. But, recovering my gravity, I advised 

91 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

that the whole question should await Mr. Roman's 
return. I was sure that he would never consent to 
any ' editing ' of Harte's story. This was agreed to, 
and when the publisher came back a few days later, 
the embargo was removed. ' The Luck of E-oaring 
Camp' was printed as it was written, and printing 
office and vestal proof-reader survived the shock." 

It is amazing to think that, but for the deter- 
mination and self-confidence of the young author, a 
Astory that has gladdened and softened the hearts of 
thousands — a story that has drawn welcome smiles- 
and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its , 
deftly mingled humour and pathos — a story that 
has been a boon to humanity — might have been sacri- \ 
ficed to the shallow ruling of a prudish young lady / 
proof-reader and a narrow-minded printer. -^ 

Bret Harte's faith in his story had no doubt been 
strengthened by the impression it made on his wife. 
When, before handing it to the printer, he read it to 
>her she shed tears. I believe she wept again when 
she heard there was a possibility of its not being 
published. 

But though successfully launched, " The Luck of 
Boaring Camp " did not at first have plain sailing. 
By the local press the story was received coolly, and 
the "religious" journals raged against it in a way 
that must have rejoiced the heart of its fair proof- 
reader. It was even said that the popularity gained 
by the first number of The Overland Monthly was 
ruined by this outrageous publication in its second. 

Bret Harte has himself recorded how " Christians 

92 



V 



"SWIMMING" 

were cautioned against pollution by its contact ; 
practical business men were gravely urged to con- 
demn and frown upon this picture of Californian 
society that was not conducive to Eastern immigra- 
tion ; its hapless author was held up to obloquy as 
a man who had abused a sacred trust. If its life and ^■ 
reputation had depended on its reception in California, 
this explanation would have been needless. But, 
fortunately, the young Overland Monthly had in 
its first number secured a hearing and position 
throughout the American Union, and the author 
waited the larger verdict. The publisher, albeit his 
worst fears were confirmed, was not a man to weakly 
regret a position he had once taken, and waited also. 
The return mail from the East brought a letter 
addressed to the ' Editor of The Overland Monthly^ 
enclosing a letter from Fields, Osgood & Co,, the 
publishers of The Atlantic Monthly, addressed to 
the — to them — unknown author of ' The Luck of 
Roaring Camp.' This the author opened, and found 
to be a request, upon the most flattering terms, for a 

^ story for the Atlantic similar to the ' Luck,' The 
same mail brought newspapers and reviews welcoming 
the little foundling of Californian literature with an 
enthusiasm that half frightened its author ; but with 
the placing of that letter in the hands of the publisher, 
who chanced to be standing by his side, and who 

I during those dark days had, without the author's 

\ faith, sustained the author's position, he felt that his 

I compensation was full and complete." 

" Thus encouraged," he continues, " ' The Luck of 

93 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

Roaring Camp ' was followed by ' The Outcasts of 
^^Poker Flat,' ' Higgles,' ' Tennessee's Partner,' and 
those various other characters who had impressed the 
author when, a mere truant schoolboy, he had lived 
among them. It is hardly necessary to say to any 
observer of human nature that at this time he was 
advised by kind and well-meaning friends to content 
himself with the success of the ' Luck,' and not tempt 
criticism again ; or that from that moment ever after 
he was in receipt of that equally sincere contem- 
poraneous criticism which assured him gravely that 
each successive story was a falling off from the last. 
Howbeit, by reinvigorated confidence in himself and 
some conscientious industry, he managed to get 
together in a year six or eight of these sketches, 
which in a volume called ' The Luck of Roaring 
Camp, and other Sketches,' gave him that encourage- 
ment in America and England that has since seemed | 
to justify him in swelling these records of a pic- i 
turesque passing civilisation." | 

Few of Bret Harte's stories have been more popular | 
^than " Tennessee's Partner," and like most of them it j 
was founded on absolute fact. For years and years a I 
close friendship had existed between two Californian i 
settlers named Chaffee and Chaniberlain. They lived j 
their simple lives under the same primitive roof-tree — ■ 
sharing a common purse, and never having a dispute, i 
Upon their lives, and no doubt with a beneficial amount i 
of added fancy, the author based his pathetic tale. | 
In the story Chaffee became the simple but true- 
minded partner who loved Tennessee to the death. 

94 ': 



"SWIMMING" 

Though Tennessee stole his wedded wife, the partner, 
who always bore the relative name, forgave him, and 
unsuccessfully endeavoured to ransom him at the cost 
of all his worldly possessions from the clutches of 
Judge Lynch. Then, when all was over, the mourn- 
ing partner, alone with his little donkey "Jinny," 
cut down Tennessee's body, and in his rough cart and 
a rude coffin half-filled with bark and the tassels of 
pine, and further decorated with slips of willow and 
made fragrant with buck-eye blossom, took his old 
comrade away to be buried in the fern- overgrown 
garden patch of the house he had so basely wronged. 

The story has it that the foundation of " Tennessee's 
Partner " lay in the eloquent plea that Chaffee once t 
made for his friend's life. It saved a neck from the 
Vigilance Committee, and turned the culprit over to 
the powers that be ; and Chaffee's eloquence had won 
a boon never granted before in Tuolumne County, 
though many, many years elapsed before a little silver- 
haired old man was told that he and his devotion to 
his partner had been used to point a moral and adorn 
a tale. 

As related and embellished by Bret Harte, the 
story is indeed a moving one, and it has served more 
than one useful purpose. 

In her charming book, " Life on the Stage," Clara ( 

Morris, the famous American actress, has written : — ( 

r "I had made my hit with the public by moving 

the people's feelings to the point of tears ; but to do^ 

I that I had first to move my own heart, for, try as 1) 

'would, no amount of careful acting had the desired 

95 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

effect. / had to shed tears, or they would not. Now 
that is not an easy thing to do to order, in cold blood. 
While the play is new one's nerves are strained al- 
most to the breaking point — one is over-sensitive and 
the feelings are easily moved ; then the pathetic words 
I am speaking touch my heart, tears rush to my eyes, 
tears are heard in my voice, and other hearts respond 
swiftly ; but when you have calmed down, when you 
have repeated the lines so often that they no longer 
mean anything to you, what are you to do then 1 " 

Then she records how she overcame her difficulty 
by thinking, while she was acting, of something that 
moved her more than the play that no longer appealed 
to her, and says : — 

" Thus in ' Alixe ' it was not for my lost lover I 
Aoftenest wept such racing tears, but for poor old 
Tennessee's partner as he buried his worthless dead, 
with his honest old heart breaking before your eyes." 

It was within a few weeks of poor Bret Harte's 
death that I came across these lines, and thinking 
they would please him I sent them to him. 

In one of his last letters to me (it is dated April 1 2, 
>I902) he wrote : — 

" My dear Pemberton, — I had heard that pub- 
lished story of Clara Morris before. I am glad it 
touched you, for she told me it herself! She was a 
strange, passionate, uncontrollable genius, yet in many 
ways as simply fine as any actress I have seen." 

And then he adds pathetically — 
>»< " I am still very poorly ; everything is against 

96 



"SWIMMING" 

me — even this smileless, joyless, ' sere and yellow ' 
spring ! I get no stimulus from it. I can scarcely 
write a letter. The grasshopper is indeed a burden IL- 
" Nevertheless — Yours always, 

"Bret Harte." 

The little story of the origin of " Tennessee's 
Partner" proves that, some sapient critics notwith- 
standing, its author did draw his characters from the 
life. He was generally indifferent with regard to 
criticism, but when he was told, as he was frequently 
told, that his characters were merely the creation of 
his brain he would wax indignant — or as nearly in- 
dignant as a man of his gentle nature could be. 

Appreciation of course pleased and encouraged 
him, but save where it savoured of malice, adverse 
criticism was with him like water on a duck's back. 
He always put his heart into his work, and he had 
faith in his power to tell his own stories in his own 
way. And yet on the point to which I have alluded 
he on more than one occasion spoke out. 

" Critics," he once said, " who have taken large 
and exhaustive views of mankind and society from 
club windows in Pall Mall or the Fifth Avenue can 
only accept for granted the turbulent chivalry that/- 
thronged the streets of San Francisco in the gala 
days of her youth, and must read the blazon of their 
deeds like the doubtful quarterings of the shield of 
Amadis de Gaul. The author has been frequently 
asked if such and such incidents were real ; if he had 
ever met such and such characters ? To this he must 

97 G 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

return the one answer, that in only a single instance 
was he conscious of drawing purely from his imagina- 
tion and fancy for a character and a logical succession 
of incidents drawn therefrom. A few weeks after his 
story was published he received a letter, authentically 
signed, correcting some of the minor details of his 
facts ! and enclosing as corroborative evidence a slip 
from an old newspaper, wherein the main incident 
of his supposed fanciful creation was recorded with a 
largeness of statement that far transcended his powers 
of imagination." 

Again, with regard to his pen-and-ink life studies, 
he wrote : " My stories are true, not only in pheno- 
mena, but in characters. I do not pretend to say 
that many of my characters existed exactly as they 
are described, but I believe there is not one of them 
that did not have a real human being as a suggesting 
and a starting-point. Some of them, indeed, had 
several. John Oakhurst, for instance, was drawn 
quite closely from life. On one occasion, however, 
when a story in which he figures was being discussed, 
a friend of mine said, ' I know the original of Oak- 
hurst, the man you took him from.' 

"'Who?' said I. 

" ' Young L .' 

" I was astounded. As a matter of fact, the 
gambler as portrayed was as good a picture, even 

to the limp, of young L as of the actual original. 

The two men, you see, belonged to a class which 
had strongly marked characteristics, and were gene- 
rally alike in dress and manner.'' 

98 



SWIMMING' 

In after life he encountered even stranger co- 
incidences than these, being brought face to face 
with facts in real life that almost precisely tallied 
with fancies he had conjured up in fiction. 

One of his early "Poems in Dialect" was entitled 
" In the Tunnel," and ran as follows : — 

" Didn't know Flynn — 
Flynn of Virginia — 
Long as he'a been yar ? 
Look'ee here, stranger, 
Whar liev you been ? 

Here in this tunnel 
He was my pardner, 
That same Tom Flynn — 
Working together, 
In wind and weather, 
Day out and in. 

Didn't know Flynn ! 
Well, that is queer ; 
Why, it's a sin 
To think of Tom Flynn ; 
Tom with his cheer, 
Tom without fear — 
Stranger, look yar ! 

Thar in the drift, 

Back to the wall, 

He held the timbers 

Ready to fall ; 

Then, in the darkness, 

I heard him call : 

' Run for your life, Jake ! 

Run for your wife's sake ! 

Don't wait for me.' 

99 

LofC. 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

And that was all 
Heard in the din, 
Heard of Tom Flynn— 
Flynn of Virginia. 

That's all about 
Flynn of Virginia. 
That lets me out. 
Here in the damp, 
Out of the sun, 
That 'ar derned lamp 
Makes my eyes run. 
Well, there, I'm done. 

Bu.t, sir, when you'll 
Hear the next fool 
Asking of Flynn — 
Flynn of Virginia — 
Just you chip in. 
Say you knew Flynn ; 
Say that you've been yar." 

I have heard these verses described as " touching," 
but " utterly untrue to anything that was likely 
to happen in real life," and therefore without value. 
" What man," said these practical critics, " would 
in a moment of awful danger calmly make the sacrifice 
of Tom Flynn simply because his partner had a wife ? " 

Years and years after these verses were penned, 
the following true incident was reported in the 
American newspapers : — 

" Indianapolis. — William Phelps of Eichmond, 
Ky., and James Stansbury of this city were cleaning 
the inside of an eight-foot upright boiler when a 
workman turned on the steam, thinking the cock 
was tight. It leaked, and the scalding steam poured 

lOO 



"SWIMMING" 

in on the two men. The only exit was up a ladder 
to a manhole in the top. Both rushed to th e ladder. 
Phelps reached it first, took one step, n.nd stopped. 
He spra ngaside and shouted^ ' You go jwnst,^ J^mi ; 
yiOu_m^jnuyrrisd' Stansbury dashed up the ladder, 
and escaped with slight burns about the face and 
legs. Though Phelps followed at his heels, his act 
of heroism cost him his life. Both men were being 
horribly scorched when Phelps made way for his 
mate. By the time he had followed Stansbury up 
the ladder, and by a supreme effort dragged his poor 
scalded body through the manhole, he was in a hope- 
less condition. He lived for two hours in terrible 
agony, but did not let a groan escape him, ' It 
was Jim's right to go first,' he said quietly ; ' he is 
married.' " 

The similarity between these simple words of a 
dying hero, and the equally noble Flynn of Vir- 
ginia's — 

" Run for your life, Jake ! 
Run for your wife's sake ! " 

is very striking. 

Here is a still more singular coincidence. 

When Bret Harte wrote his famous " Condensed 
Novels," he of course endeavoured to conceive and 
describe his incidents from an extravagant and im- 
possible point of view. Therein lay much of the 
humour of his splendid parodies. 

In " Selina Sedilia " he good-naturedly imitated 
Miss M. E. Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood in their 
most sensational moods, and at the supreme moment 

lOI 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

of his travesty he pictures an absurd situation, in 
which it is decided that an express train, conveying 
a lady obnoxious to the interests of the unscrupulous 
hero, ^^ must not arrive!" Accordingly a bridge over 
which it has to pass is cut down by a " hireling " 
(one " Burke the Slogger "), and falls into the river be- 
neath it, " leaving a space of one hundred feet between 
the two banks." The horrible moment is at hand. 
"A shriek from the woods" announces the approach 
of the doomed express. " The ground trembled. The 
train was going with fearful rapidity. Another second 
and it had reached the bank. Burke the Slogger 
uttered a fiendish laugh. But the next moment the 
train had leaped across the chasm, striking the rails 
exactly even, and, dashing out the life of Burke the 
Slogger, sped away to Slopperton." 

When one read this in the "sixties" it seemed far 
too ridiculous an episode for the conception of even 
the most daring of sensational novelists. But only a 
short time ago an incident occurred showing that the 
velocity of a train could almost vie with the wild 
fancy of the writer of whimsical burlesque. Witness 
the following record : " New York, Friday. — ' A 
Bace for Life.' — A trestle bridge on the South 
Carolina Railroad near Shelby, 250 feet long and 75 
feet wide, collapsed last night just as a passenger train 
was crossing. The engine-driver feeling the bridge 
giving way opened the throttle-valve and dashed on 
at full speed in the hope of getting the train over 
before the final collapse. His prompt action saved 

the greater part of the train. All the cars reached 

102 



I.-. 



,v-'- 




"SWIMMING" 

the other side safely except one passenger car and 
four goods waggons, which were wrecked." 

Here is one more instance : — 

In "Gabriel Conroy" he graphically, and with 
his usual minute attention to detail, described the 
bursting of a huge reservoir, the irruption of its 
vast volume of water, and the scenes of calamity, 
peril, and death that ensued therefrom. The catas- 
trophe was the offspring of his brain. He had never 
seen or heard of such a disaster, but invented it, and 
its consequences, for the purposes of his story. Some- 
time after the book was published he received a letter 
in which he was asked how he could possibly have 
conceived an event which actually occurred (just as 
he had imagined it) after "Gabriel Conroy" was in 
the hands of its readers ! 

Concerning the early days of The Overland 
Monthly Mr. Stoddard has told me much. He knew 
Bret Harte best at that time and saw much of him. 
" Fortunately for me," he says, " he took an interest 
in me at a time when I was most in need of advice, 
and to his criticism and his encouragement I feel 
that I owe all that is best in my literary efforts. He 
was not afraid to_speak his mi nd, and I knew well 
enough what occasion I gave him ; yet he did not 
judge me more severely than he judged himself. His 
humour and his fancy were not frightened away even 
when he was in his severest critical mood. Once when 
I had sent him some verses for approval he wrote : — 

" ' The Albatross ' is better, but not best, which is 

what I wanted. And then you know Coleridge has 

103 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

prior claim on the bird. But I'll use him unless you 
send me something else ; you can, an you like, take 
this as a threat. 

" ' In " Jason's Quest " you have made a mistake 
of subject. It is by no means suited to your best 
thought, and you are quite as much at sea in your 
mythology as Jason was. You can do, have done, 
and must do better. Don't waste your strength 
in experiments. Give me another South Sea Bubble, 
a prose tropical picture, with the Cannibal, who is 
dead, left out.' 

" I am sure that the majority of the contributors 
to The Overlmid Monthly, while it was edited by 
Bret Harte, profited, as I did, by his careful and 
judicious criticism. Fastidious to a degree, he could 
not overlook a lack of finish in the manuscrij3t 
offered him. He had a special taste in the choice 
of titles, and I have known him to alter the name 
of an article two or three times in order that the 
table of contents might read handsomely and har- 
moniously." 

Joaquin Miller also speaks with appreciation 
of the encouragement he received from the first 
- editor of the Overland. He was grateful for 
his generous review of " his first little book, pub- 
lished in Oregon late in the sixties ; " and says : 
*' As I turn back over the story of my life, it really 
looks as if Bret Harte was my mascotte, good genius, 
or what you please." 

Of the pains the critical yet kindly editor took 

in his own work there is no doubt. Mr. Stoddard 

104 



"SWIMMING" 

found him one day pacing the floor of his office in 
the Mint ; he was knitting his brows and staring 
at vacancy ; his visitor wondered why. He was 
watching and waiting for a word, the right word, 
the one word of all others to fit into a line of recently 
written prose. Mr. Stoddard suggested one ; it 
would not answer, it must be a word of two syllables, 
or the natural rhythm of the sentence would suffer. 
Thus he perfected his prose. Once, when he had 
taken his friend to task for a bit of careless work, 
then under his critical eye, and complained of a 
false number, the conscious writer thought to turn 
away his wrath with a soft answer. He told him 
he had just met a man who had wept over a certain 
passage in one of his stories. ' Well,' said Bret 
Harte, ' he had a right to ; I wept when I wrote it." ^ 

Mr. Stoddard has given me an interesting and 
somewhat pathetic little word-picture of the young 
Mint secretary (let it be remembered that Bret 
Harte was not yet thirty when " The Luck " cap- 
tured and comforted the hungry heart of " Roaring 
Camp," and the Camp the heart of all the world) 
trying to combine literary with official work. 

" He was now a man with a family," his colleague 
notes. " The resources derived from literature were 
uncertain and unsatisfactory. His influential friends 
paid him cheering visits in the gloomy office where 
he leavened his daily loaves ; and at his desk, be- 
tween the exacting pages of the too literal ledger, 
many a couplet cropped out, and the outlines of now 

famous sketches were faintly limned. His friends 

105 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

were few, but notable ; society he ignored in those 
days. He used to accuse me of wasting my substance 
in riotous visitations, and thought me a spendthrift 
of time. He had the precious companionship of books, 
and the lives of those about him were as an open 
volume, wherein he read curiously and to his profit. 
Had he not a genuine love of children, he could not 
have written ' The Luck of Roaring Camp.' His 
understanding and appreciation of childhood and all 
that pertains to its embryo world, he must have 
developed in his own home." 

That must have been so. We all know that the joys 
and griefs of infancy illuminate some of his best work. 

That he could be a caustic as well as a kindly 
critic is without doubt. 

His editorial work comprised the book reviews 
and the gossipy article labelled " Etc.," which appeared 
towards the end of the magazine. 

Mr. Noah Brooks shared the book reviewing with 
him, and has recorded how they used to strive, good- 
naturedly, for the privilege of dealing with volumes 
that were doomed to be " scalped." " With the 
confidence of youth," he says, " it was easier for us to 
' scalp ' a poor book than to do full justice to a worthy 
one. As a book-scalper Harte greatly excelled. 
His satire was fine and keen." 

As the editor of " Etc." he required no assistance. 

His comments on passing events were ever trenchant, 

witty, and clever. Sometimes, however, they were 

in a certain way incautious — as witness the following 

example. 

1 06 



"SWIMMING" 

" Harte," says Mr. Brooks, " hated the materiahsm 
and ungracious atmosphere of San Francisco, and he 
could never be reconciled to the commercialism that 
pervaded every rank of society. We were visited by 
a tolerably brisk earthquake shock — I think it was in 
1869 — to the great dismay of the 'leading citizens' 
of San Francisco, and a select committee of bankers 
and merchants called on the newspaper editors to 
treat the ' trembler ' as lightly as possible. The 
Associated Press agents were requested to refain from 
alarming the East with sensational despatches. It 
would never do to give our town the reputation of an 
earthquake's centre. Harte was not cautioned, and 
when the next number of The Overland Monthly came 
out his editorial page, ' Etc.,' carried an amusing skit, 
the main point of which was that, according to the 
San Francisco newspapers, the next earthquake that 
came along would get the worst of it in an encounter 
with us." 

It is said that in certain quarters Bret Harte was 
never forgiven for this jest, and that, indirectly, he 
was made to pay for it. 

Popular though his stories had now become in 
the Ove7'la7id, he did not make such a "sensational" 
success (I apologise for the word, but can find no 
better to convey what I mean) as " The Luck of Roar- 
ing Camp " until the appearance of those immortal 
verses commonly called " The Heathen Chinee," but 
which were really entitled " Plain Language from 
Truthful James. — Table Mountain, 1870." 

By this effort Bret Harte had set little store. 

107 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

We have seen in these pages how the Chinese were 
invading Cahfornia in large numbers, imitating the 
Caucasian in all things, and in spite of the contempt 
and even ignominy with which they were treated 
were quietly and very ingeniously holding their 
own. 

He foresaw what might come of this, and he 
thought that he could, by treating the situation from 
a humorous point of view, strike a note in the right 
direction. It is curious to reflect that Ah Sin and 
his famous hand at euchre — the "game he did not 
understand " — were designed to serve a practical 
purpose ; but it was so, and on more than one occasion 
that purpose was fulfilled. 

But it was not until the author-editor wanted to 
fill a space in his magazine that he took the lines 
from his desk and handed them to his printer. 

Thinking very little of his effort he was not at all 
surprised that in San Francisco, where it should have 
been at once understood and appreciated, " The 
►Heathen Chinee " attracted little or no attention, and 
he had almost forgotten it when it began to create a 
sensation in the outside world. The verses had been 
reprinted in an eastern newspaper and were then im- 
mediately hailed with delight, their delicious humour 
being gratefully acknowledged, and their perfect and 
strangely attractive style cordially praised. They 
found their way to England, and the chorus of delight 
was augmented. Within a few weeks millions of 
people, who knew nothing of possible difficulties which 

the growing power of the Chinaman might create in 

io8 



'SWIMMING" 

the labour markets of California, were talking of Ah 
Sin — of his "smile that was childlike and bland," and 
of his " peculiar" way of making sure of " the game 
he did not understand." It has remained so until 
to-day. Of the little composition, so quickly con- 
ceived and written, and so modestly placed before the 
world, one English writer has fearlessly said : " No 
short poem in the English language ever achieved 
such a success as it did ; and perhaps, if we except 
Pope's ' Essay on Man,' there is no poem in our 
native tongue that has added so great a number of 
distinctive phrases and epithets to our everyday 
speech." 

Indeed, it was " The Heathen Chinee " that 
clenched the growing popularity of Bret Harte's 
works in England. If some of us missed a little of 
the fun that those who lived nearer the scene of 
their action derived from it, it was generally acknow- 
ledged that the new author had gone the right way 
about his work in amusing the public, taking in 
hand the thing that was next him, and looking at it 
with the eye of an artist ; and while, scathing mean- 
ness and vice with their several weapons, being quite 
assured with Luther that there is nothing the Devil 
so much hates as a hearty laugh. 

But like the actor who never thinks that the 
part in which he has achieved his greatest popularity 
is his best assumption, the author of " The Heathen 
Chinee " never seemed to see the merit of his achieve- 
ment, and was unelated by the cordiality of its 
reception. He did not value it, and seemed to deplore 

109 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

the extraordinary interest it excited. Mr. Stoddard 
believed that he even sought consolation in the know- 
ledge that rash enthusiasm is generally ephemeral. 

But on this occasion the enthusiasm was anything 
but ephemeral, and in quite recent years I have seen 
Bret Harte, while reading his morning papers, make 
half humorous, half earnest protest against the con- 
stancy with which the sayings of Ah Sin, Bill Nye, 
and Truthful James, and the doings connected with 
the game of euchre, played on Table Mountain in 
1870, were quoted. One can see it in the papers of 
to-day. Mr. Stoddard is right in declaring that even 
the sensational success of " The Heathen Chinee " 
could not endanger a reputation founded upon a basis 
of solid worth. " Its establishment was sudden," he 
says, " one might almost say instantaneous ; for paral- 
lels I recall ' Waverley ' and ' The Pickwick Papers.' " 
Bret Harte, however, was always singularly sensitive 
with regard to Ah Sin, and in this connection a 
rather amusing story may be told. Soon after his 
first arrival in London his acquaintance was sought 
by a certain noble Lord of high literary reputation, 
and, after the customary formal call, he was invited 
to dine at the great man's house. Always anxious 
to escape being lionised, he told a friend, who was 
to be of the party, that he should not go if he thought 
" The Heathen Chinee " would be quoted at table. 
The well-meaning friend sent a note of warning to 
their host ; but his lordship loved a joke, and, giving 
his other guests a hint, they talked " Heathen 

Chinee " and nothing else ! At first perplexed and 

no 



'SWIMMING" 

annoyed, Bret Harte soon saw through the little 
plot, and heartily joined in the laugh he had helped 
to raise against himself. 

For a long time it was little suspected that the 
familiar, whimsical, and lapidary-cut lines had a 
Greek source, but the fact was discovered by one 
of our English poets. Being challenged on the sub- 
ject the author at once admitted that his metre 
had been suggested by the threnody in Swinburne's 
, " Atalanta in Calydon ; " and it had oddly occurred 
to him that the grand and beautiful sweep of that 
chorus was just the kind of thing that Truthful 
James would not be likely to use in relating his 
experiences. " Listen," he would say when he spoke 
on this subject, " listen while I alternate the lines, 
and you will see what I mean : — 

* Atalanta, the fairest of women, whose name is a blessing to speak — 
[Yet he played it that day upon "William and me in a way I 

despise.] 
The narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits of Propontis 

with spi'ay — 
[And we found on his nails which were taper, what's frequent in 

tapers that's wax. ]' " 

And then he would laugh with that happy laugh 
at his own sense of fun with which his most intimate 
friends were familiar ; and then, suddenly becoming 
serious, would be quite anxious to assure you that 
though he had used Swinburne's methods for the 
purposes of parody, he had the highest respect for 
his genius. 

V In 1870 Bret Harte was not only an exceedingly 
^ III 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

busy man, but his society was in great request. 
Loving the quiet of home Hfe and longing for the 
leisure that he felt his literary work needed, he had 
taken a house outside the city ; but he found it 
difficult to escape from all social engagements. Wit- 
ness the following letter to his wife : — 

"To Mrs. Anna Harte, San Jose. 

" Rooms op The Overland Monthly, San Francisco, 

Wednesday. 

" My dear Anna, — Felton asked me to dine at 
Pioche's to-night to meet Professor Price and some 
of the Regents. I declined at first, saying I wished 
to go to San Josd to-night ; but he pressed it on 
the ground of practical utility, and I assented. I 
suppose this is the way these things are done in 
California. Yet I would rather have ' a dinner of 
herbs ' in San Jose than the ' stalled ox ' up at 
Pioche's, but that there is a prospect of the East 
of Europe in the distance. I suppose you will be 
doubly disappointed that Mrs. Leech does not come 
down to-night ; but she says she will not be able 
to leave here till Saturday night, when she and 
Leech will go down — the latter to return Monday, 
the former to stay later, if we stay. I met Mr. 
Beard of San Josd Mission in the cars yesterday. 
He repeated his old invitation, and in very shame 
I at last accepted, promising to bring you and the 
boys on Saturday morning by the R. R. to Wash- 
ington Station, when he will meet us with a carriage 
to take us to the Mission, a mile or two distant, 

112 



"SWIMMING" 

where we are to spend the day, returning by the 
evening train to San Jos^. So don't make any other 
plans for Saturday. 

" I've seen Barrett. He will not make any 
other than his first offer, and of course I declined 
to accept it. But of this I will say more when I 
see you to-morrow (Thursday) night. Your affec- 
tionate Frank." 

Whether he willed it or not, the excitement created 
by " The Heathen Chinee " was destined to have a 
great effect upon his career. Soon after the verses 
. appeared, a single new firm in New York was taking 
twelve hundred copies of The Overland Monthly, 
and the offers he now received to take his standing in 
Western America became too tempting to be refused. 
' Considering his wife and children he felt he had no 
I right to decline them, though it was not without a 
pang that he left the shores on which he had so firmly 
planted his foot, and the colleagues and comrades 
whom he loved. But probably he had lingered long 
enough, and Mr, Stoddard who had, as we have seen, 
worked side by side with him in San Francisco, says : — 
"When he left California in ,1871, he left it be- 
times ; he took with him about all that was worth 
taking, and the California he once knew, and surely 
must have loved, lives forever in his pages. It no 
longer exists in fact ; but for him, in another genera- 
tion, it would have been forgotten. Because he had 
penetration such as few possess, and exceptional fancy, 
imagination, and literary art, he has been thought 

113 H 



IN LIFE'S STREAM: 

untrue to nature ; those whom he has pictured would 
have no difficulty in recognising themselves and each 
other could they but see the types he has made his 
own. It has been said, too, that he repeats himself. 
He does ; so does spring and so does summer — each is 
but another spring, another summer ; but they are 
never twice alike, nor would we have them other than 
they are. Any one can vouch for Bret Harte's truth 
to nature who knew San Francisco in the fifties, 
and is familiar with his civic and character sketches ; 
what is true of one page is true of all. It is the point 
of view in every case that determines to whom the 
page or the picture shall appeal, and whether favour- 
ably or not. His experience in New England weighs 
little in the balance with his experience in Cali- 
fornia ; his experience abroad even less. It was 
California, and early California — and let me say 
picturesque California — that first appealed to him, 
and through him to all the civilised nations in their 
several tongues." 

Of course his friends had to give him a little 
" send off." " The night before he left California for 
New York," records Mr. Noah Brooks, " a little party 
of us, eight, all working writers, met at a farewell 
dinner. It was one of the veritable nodes amhrosianae ; 
the talk was intimate, heart-to-heart, and altogether 
of the shop. Naturally Harte was the centre of the 
little company, and he was never more fascinating 
and companionable. Day was breaking when the 
party dispersed, and the ties that bound Harte to 

California were sundered." 

114 



"SWIMMING" 

Such a gathering as this would appeal to Bret 
Harte, and I know that the memory of it lived 
pleasantly in his mind. But of his hatred of any 
public demonstration made on his behalf, and of his 
keen desire to avoid any such function, Mr. Brooks 
narrates the following characteristic anecdote : — 

" Chicago," he says, " had put in a bid for the 
author of ' The Luck of Roaring Camp,' and a dinner 
was made for him as he passed through that city. 
He accepted the invitation, but did not appear at the 
dinner, much to the disgust of his hosts, who after- 
wards said that a cheque of liberal figures, or a deed 
for a house and lot, or both, had been laid under his 
plate, but were saved by his ' bad manners.' When 
I met Harte in New York, I asked him about the 
incident, and he said, ' In Chicago I stayed with 
relations of my wife's, who lived on the North Side, 
or the East Side, or the North-east Side, or Lord 
knows where, and when I accepted an invitation to 
a dinner in a hotel in the centre of the city, I ex- 
pected that a guide would be sent me, I was a 
stranger in a strange city ; a carriage was not easily 
to be obtained in the neighbourhood where I was, 
and, in utter ignorance of the way I should take to 
reach the hotel I waited for a guide until the hour 
for dinner had passed, and then sat down, as your 
friend S. P. D. said to you in California, " en famille 
with my family." That's all there was in it.' " 

It is a little difficult to swallow that part of the 
story that deals with the " cheque under the plate," 
I but I can readily picture Bret Harte, as the un- 

115 



IN LIFE'S STREAM 

welcome dinner hour approached, making excuses to 
himself for himself and conjuring up that hitherto 
unsuggested '''guide." 

With his diffident nature he no doubt approached 
his native State and the great city of New York with 
some misgivings. But the self-imposed wanderings of 
the enterprising young Argonaut were at an end : his 
Golden Fleece had been won and must be brought 
" home " — there to be beholden by all men. 



ii6 



CHAPTER IV 

FROM PACIFIC TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

I HAVE before me a copy of the London Daily News 
of March 21, 1871, which at the time of its appear- 
ance so amused Bret Harte that he (generally very 
indifferent to such matters) always kept it. He liked 
the good temper of the banter to which he was sub- 
jected, and he was greatly diverted to find himself 
such a celebrity. He was neither flattered nor grati- 
fied ; in another mood he might have been annoyed. 
As it happened the leading article that dealt with 
him tickled his fancy, and he liked laughingly to 
recall its memory. 

This is what the Daily Neivs said : — 
" America has a new star. The planet which 
Tycho Brahe saw suddenly kindled in the heavens 
and gradually increasing to the size of Jupiter has 
been questioned by more recent astronomers ; but the 
full-orbed fame of Mr. Bret Harte among his country- 
men comes to us in no questionable shape. The East 
and the West contend for the reflected rays of his 
celebrity ; cities dispute for the honour of his pre- 
sence ; Chicago beguiles him from San Francisco, 
New York snatches him from Chicago, and Boston 
plots deeply his abstraction from New York. His 

117 



FROM PACIFIC 

lightest movement is chronicled in every paper, and 
where he stops for a few days a kind of ' Bret Harte 
Circular ' appears in the daily press. 

" ' Mr. F. Bret Harte arrived in this city about 
eleven o'clock, Saturday forenoon, and went im- 
mediately to the residence of Mr. W. D, Howells in 
Cambridge. Mr, Harte is accompanied by his family, 
consisting of his wife and two children.' ' Mr. Bret 
Harte on his first day in Boston dined with the 
Saturday Club, where he met amongst others Louis 

-^Agassiz, Henry W. LongfelloM^, James Bussell Lowell, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and 
Bichard H. Dana, junior.' ' Mr. Bret Harte visited 
the Consumptives' Home fair yesterday accompanied 
by Mr. James T. Fields.' ' Bret Harte returns to 
New York from Boston to-morrow (ist) and goes at 

>once at his work of writing for Eastern magazines. 

Probably his first new work will appear in Harper J 

These are items from our Boston files of two or three 

days, and similar passages have attended the young 

author's triumphal progress through various cities 

from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The Americans may 

at least claim that in this case they have been the 

first to recognise their own great man. It was once 

asked in derision, Who reads an American book ? The 

question is now repeated only as a note of triumph. 

But since Sydney Smith's phrase has become its own 

refutation, there have not been wanting those who, in 

the spirit of it, have asserted that America has not 

known its great writers until they had been recog- 

ii8 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

nised by the Old World, and the earliest fame of 
Irving, Emerson, and Hawthorne, has been claimed 
as European. Whatever may be said on this very 
doubtful theory, certain it is that in the present in- 
stance America has got far ahead of us, for we fear 
that not a few of the most intelligent English readers 
will be found asking, Who is Mr. Bret Harte ? — and 
what has he said or done ? 

" We answer, he is a young author who has suc- 
ceeded in making all America burst into inextinguish- 
able laughter. He has done this not by ingenuity of 
misspelling, nor by grotesqueness of literary grimace, 
but by a series of really humorous works, capped by a 
local satire which has raised the cachinnations into a 
hearty roar that can only be described as national. 
Though Mr. Harte's universal popularity is in his own 
country recent, and has not found us on this side of 
the water suiiiciently released from the heaviness of 
the tragedy at our doors to swell it, yet there are 
some in this country, as in America, whose divining 
rods search out genius as far as California, and distin- 
guish it from the base ores, as the miners, with whom 
Mr. Harte is so familiar, their nuggets of gold. There 
have been readers here also of the excellent Overland 
Monthly, whose appearance in California was one sign 
of the disappearance of chaos and of the beginning 
of a higher social stratification. They have marked 
in that periodical the exquisite sketches of life, por- 
traits of character, curious stories — now replete with 
drollery, now deepening with pathetic touches — which 

119 



FROM PACIFIC 

already announced that a mind of singular power and 
originality had begun its task in that far-off country. 
Now and then too there appeared therein poems, 
with a certain untamed flavour about them like the 
Catawba grape, and an earnest sympathetic tone 
toward the wild features of occidental scenery, as if 
the poet found in the mighty pines and heights 
something adapted to the climbing of his vague 
ideals. These poems have been published, but they 
are studies rather than complete works of art, and 
have probably not contributed the most to Mr. Bret 
Harte's present popularity. The prose sketches 
collected under the name of the most important of 
them, ' The Luck of Roaring Camp,' constitute by 
far the best specimens of American humour which 
have appeared since The Bigelow Papers, and show 
a variety of ability not at all equalled by their 
author's old friend Artemus Ward. But there is 
about these sketches a subtlety, a keenness of satire, 
an impatience of humbug and meanness which, while 
they would naturally earn for their writer the fra- 
ternal welcome among thinkers and scholars which 
he has received, could hardly alone have commanded 
the attention of vast populations. This achievement^ 
was the work of a happy hour, and might easily have 
seemed to some one of his idlest ; but it really was 
one of those works of pure art for which a long 
training is necessary, and which suggest as their 

1 Needless to say the writer alludes here to Bret Harte's bugbear, 
" The Heathen Chinee." 

1 20 



I 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

parallel the touch at which some common substance 
flashes to its crystal." 

Judging from what he told me in after years, T 
do not think that the successful author, as he tra- 
velled from city to city to the accompaniment of a 
constant ovation, was thinking so much of the fame 
which he had achieved and which was now being 
thrust upon him — of the passing events of his journey, 
or of the work that lay before him at its end — as 
of the memories he was leaving behind him. No 
doubt it was with true regret that he quitted the 
editorial chair of his beloved Overland Monthly, and 
it was not without a pang that he resigned the 
Professorship of Literature in the University of Cali- 
fornia, to which he had recently been appointed. 

His mind dwelt wistfully too on his first Cali- 
fornian home in Oakland, where, with his own hands, 
he had made a garden fence with laths laid close 
together in a small diamond pattern. My kind friend 
Mr. Stoddard has written me about that pleasant and 
peaceful spot, and of the bungalow that was sheltered 
by the largest " live oak " in the vicinity. Bret 
Harte had taken great pride in his handiwork, and 
I his fence was always fresh with whitewash. Oakland, 
with its bungalow and fenced-in garden, had been his 
starting-point, and, ever mistrustful of himself, he 
1 now wondered if he would not have been happier if 
!» he had adapted himself to the work that then lay 
within his reach, instead of embarking on the uncer- 
tain seas of authorship. 

121 



FROM PACIFIC 



'^B 



But he had to accept the position he had made 
for himself, and to bow to a reception of which the 
greatest of authors might have been proud. That 
in his heart of heart he took a proper pride in his 
Hterary triumphs is beyond question ; but it is equally 
certain that he could not bear to hear them proclaimed 
from the housetops. On such occasions he longed 
for the seclusion of the basement ; and this earnest 
desire for self-effacement never left him. It did not, 
however, stand in the way of his keen enjoyment 
of congenial society, or his delight in meeting the 
distinguished people whose work he admired. All 
that he asked was that he and his own work should 
not be the sole topic of conversation. 

His life in New York was naturally less varied, 
and so, in a way, less interesting than it had been 
in California. The demand for his stories kept his 
pen constantly at work, and in his hours of relaxation 
he formed many new friendships. It has been said 
that his residence in the great American city added 
little to his literary skill or to his store of literary 
material. The fact is that his literary skill had been 
perfected before he left California, and his old mate- 
rial was in such constant request that he had no need 
to seek anything new. The public wanted to hear 
more from him concerning the gold miners, their asso- 
ciates, and environment, and the publishers had to 
attend to the wants of the public. 

That he longed for some of his old friends is 
certain. When he heard that Noah Brooks, his 

122 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

colleague on the Overland, was coming to live in 

New York, he said gleefully : " He and I will found 

the Society of the Escaped Californians." Mr. Brooks 

says that he found his friend " a little bewildered by 

the strangeness of his new surroundings ; and he was 

puzzled to decide whether he should venture into 

these new fields ; " and, he adds, " he came to the 

wise conclusion that his best work was to be done 

with the bulky portfolio of mental photographs which 

he had gathered in California. And so he returned 

to the old trails ; and in the old trails he remained to 

the day of his death." 

Very wisely, too, he determined through the hot 

summer months he would always go with his wife 

and family into some country home. His first haunt 

of this description was Newport on the sea coast, and 

I there many happy months were passed. In a similar 

j way several summers were spent at Morristown, New 

I Jersey, in a beautiful old house associated with the 

I Washington family. There the beautiful tale entitled- 

I " Thankful Blossom " was written. This, of course, 

was a distinct departure from the " Argonaut" stories, 

and since it became one of his great successes it proves 

that Bret Harte, if he had been given rein, could very 

easily get away from his accustomed groove. By the 

way, I have often heard it said the name of the sweet 

maiden — Thankful Blossom — is more far-fetched than 

fanciful. As a matter of fact it was the true name of 

an ancestress of the Harte family. No doubt the 

story gained some inspiration from the fact that it 

123 



FROM PACIFIC 

was written on the historic scene of Washington's 
headquarters, and that the great General must have 
experienced the bitter winter so graphically described 
in it. I believe I am right in saying that partly 
through Bret Harte's influence the interesting old 
house to which I have referred was purchased by the 
State, and is now most carefully preserved. Another 
favourite warm weather resort was Cohasset. There, 
one year, he found himself the neighbour of Lawrence 
Barrett, the eminent actor, and of Stuart Robson, the 
well-known comedian, for whom he was writing the 
play called " Two Men of Sandy Bar." Barrett took 
immense interest in the piece, and as it progressed 
used to read it aloud to the Harte family and their 
friends. It is safe to assume that on those occasions 
the author was not present ! 

He must at that time have been one of the busiest 
of men, for, in addition to his play, he was at work 
upon his one great attempt at a prolonged story, 
►or novel, " Gabriel Conroy." 

Does the reader remember the graphic opening 
pages of that striking romance ? 

" Snow. Everywhere. As far as the eye could 

reach — fifty miles looking southward from the highest 

white peak — filling ravines and gulches, and dropping 

from the walls of canons in white shrouds like drifts, 

fashioning the dividing ridge into the likeness of a 

^monstrous grave, hiding the bases of giant pines, and 

completely covering young trees and larches, riming 

with porcelain the bowl-like edges of still, cold lakes, 

124 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

and undulating in motionless white billows to the 

edge of the distant horizon. Snow lying everywhere 

over the Californian Sierras on the 15th day of 

March 1848, and still falling. 

" It had been snowing for ten days ; snowing in 

finely granulated powder, in damp, spongy flakes, in 

thin feathery plumes ; snowing from a leaden sky 

steadily, snowing fiercely, shaken out of purple-black 

clouds in white, flocculent masses, or dropping in long 

level lines, like white lances from the tumbled and ' 

broken heavens. But always silently ! The woods 

were so choked with it, the branches were so laden 

with it — it had so permeated, filled and possessed 

earth and sky ; it had so cushioned and muffled the 

ringing rocks and echoing hills that all sound was 

deadened. The strongest gust, the fiercest blast 

awoke no sigh or complaint from the snow-packed 

rigid files of forest. There was no cracking of bough 

nor crackle of underbrush ; the overladen branches of 

pine and fir yielded and gave way without a sound. 

The silence was vast, measureless, complete ! Nor 

could it be said that any outward sign of life or 

motion changed the fixed outlines of this stricken 

landscape. Above, there was no play of light and 

shadow, only the occasional deepening of storm or 

night. Below, no bird winged its flight across the 

white expanse, no beast haunted the confines of the 

backwoods ; whatever of brute nature might once 

have inhabited these solitudes had long since flown 

down to the lowlands. There was no track or imprint ; 

125 



FROM PACIFIC 

whatever foot might have left its mark upon this 
waste, each succeeding snowfall obliterated all trace 
or record. Every morning the solitude was virgin 
and unbroken ; and a million tiny feet had stepped 
into the track and filled it up." 

Well, it is a noteworthy and curious fact that this 
realistic picture of pitiless snow and biting cold was 
conjured up and written down on one of the hottest 
days of a notoriously hot summer, and while the 
author was actually fanning himself But Bret Harte 
never depended on his surroundings for his inspiration. 
He could always draw on his marvellous memory, and 
it never failed to respond to his call. Once I found 
him writing in London with his house enveloped in 
one of those pea-soup coloured fogs (one of Mr. Guppy's 
"London particulars") which take rank among the 
most depressing of earthly things ; but he told me 
that, being in the heart of a story, it mattered little 
to him, and that he could picture to himself the grand 
canons and mighty pine-trees, the purple Sierras and 
the dusty plains of California, as if they were before 
him ; nay, that he could even gain exhilaration by 
imagining the spicy scents of the fir-trees, and the 
purity of the invigorating air of the land that formed 
the background for his new set of characters. 

Another favourite place of his was Lenox, and 
here we get az± interesting peep at him through 
the " Kecords " of Frances Anne Kemble (Mrs. 
Butler), the renowned English actress. That grace- 
ful writer has left a pretty word-picture of Lenox. 

126 




11 ret Harte {i-'ircu 1,S71). 



[To face p. 126. 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

"It is astonishing how Hke Switzerland it is ! " 

she says ; " not the Alpine magnificent side of 

Switzerland, but the whole of the valley of the 

1 lake of Neufchatel, looking towards the Jura, It is 

I like the neighbourhood of La Jonchere and all that 

I family of Jura valleys. The village of Lenox itself 

has immensely improved. The beautiful trees along 

its two streets, which cross each other at right 

I angles on the top of a steep hill, have grown tall 

, and thick, so that in looking: down on the small 

! table-land, where the houses are clustered together 

for a considerable height, on which stands the oldest 

I village church (whose clock, with which I endowed 

it, still shows the inhabitants the time of day), the 

whole place is embowered in foliage, and with the 

, deep valleys below it, and the blue distant hills 

! rising up almost to mountains beyond, is a most 

charming piece of scenery." 

As the readers of the fascinating '* Records " are 
I aware, they chiefly took the form of letters. Here 
is the one that contains the allusion to Bret 
Harte : — 

"Lenox, October 6th, 1875. 

" My dearest H , — You will learn where I 

am by the date of my letter in this formerly 

familiar dwelling of mine, whither I came to-day 

from Boston, where I parted with M , who is 

going to spend a few days at Newport, which I 

shall pass here, after which we meet again at 

Boston, and return together to Philadelphia, I 

127 



FROM PACIFIC 

shall be away from York Farm about ten days, and 
your letters will not be forwarded to me, as I had 
much rather wait a few days to receive them than 
run the risk of losing them involved in their follow- 
ing me through two or three American post offices. 

" F and Mr. L. are staying here, and I knew 

my coming would be a pleasant surprise to her. 
There are still some old friends of mine here, and 
several younger members of the Sedgwick family, 
to whom I am much attached, and whom I am 
very glad to see again, and I am charmed to be 
once more in the picturesque country of which I 
am so fond, and where I have spent so many happy 
days. 

" The autumn is now in its full beauty, and 
nothing can exceed the splendour of the many- 
tinted foliage — this Joseph's coat given to the 
youngest of worlds, or rather, of nations (for this 
world, science says, is the older of the two). The 
weather, too, is exquisite, wonderfully brilliant and 
soft in its radiance, and though delightfully warm 
and sunny, not in the least oppressive. This is 
the only pleasant season of the American year, 
unequalled, as the Italian spring in its way. It is 
really delightful, and often protracted with us in 
Pennsylvania till the end of November ; not up here, 
though, where it is every now and then already 
slightly chilly, and ere long will be unpleasantly so. 

"I am tired, dearest H , with my six 

hours' railway journey, and will bid you good-night, 

128 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

as it is just twelve o'clock. I do not like to think 
that it will be a whole week before I hear from 
you. God bless you, dear. — Ever as ever yours, 

Fanny." 

" During this visit of mine to Lenox 1 made the 
acquaintance of Mr. Bret Harte, with whose original 
stories I had been deeply interested and delighted. 
He was staying in the same hotel with us, and did 
us the favour of spending an evening with us. He 
reminded me a good deal of our old pirate and 
bandit friend, Trelawny, in his^appearance, though 
the latter was an almost orientally dark-com- 
plexioned man, and Mr. Bret Harte was com- 
paratively fair. They _were^ both_ tall, well-made_ 
men of fine figure ; both, too, were handsome, with 
a peculiar expression of face, which suggested small 
success to any one who might engage in personal 
conflict with them. I had been told that Mr. Bret 
Harte was an agent for some Eastern Express 
Company, travelling for whom in the savage western 
wilderness, among the worst kind of savages, the 
outcasts of civilisation, he must often have carried 
considerable sums of money about his person, and 
always have ridden his long lonely journey with his 
life in his hand. 

" He told us of one of his striking experiences, 

and his telling it made it singularly impressive. 

He had arrived at night at a solitary house of call 

on his way, absolutely isolated and far distant from 

129 I 



FROM PACIFIC 

any other dwelling - — a sort of rough, roadside 
tavern, known and resorted to by the wanderers 
in that region. Here he was to pass the night. 
The master of the house, to whom he was known, 
answered his question as to whether any one else 
was there by giving the name of a notorious des- 
perado, who had committed some recent outrage, 
and in search of whom the wild justices — the 
lynchers of the wilderness — were scouring the 
district. This guest, the landlord said, was hiding 
in the house, and was to leave it (if he was still 
alive) the next day. Bret Harte, accustomed to 
rough company, went quietly to bed and to sleep, 
but was aroused in the middle of the night by the 
arrival of a party of horsemen, who called up the 
master of the house and inquired if the man they 
were in pursuit of was with him. Upon receiving 
his repeated positive assurance that he was not, they 
remounted their horses and resumed their search. 

" At break of day Bret Harte took his departure, 
finding that for the first part of his journey he was 
to have the hiding hero of the night (thief or 
murderer, probably) for his companion, to whom, 
on his departure, the master of the house gave the 
most reiterated, precise, and minute directions as 
to the only road by which it would be possible that 
he could escape his pursuers, Bret Harte meanwhile 
listening to these directions as if they were addressed 
to himself They rode silently for a short time 

and then the fugitive began to talk — not about 

130 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

his escape, not about the danger of the past night, 
not about the crime he had committed, but about 
Dlckenss last story, in which he expressed such an 
eager and enthusiastic interest, that he would have 
passed the turning in the road by which he was 
to have made his escape if Bret Harte had not 
pointed it out to him, saying, ' That is your way.' 
I wish I could remember what story of Dickens's it 
was, and that he could have been made acquainted 
with this incident, worthy of a record in one of his 
books. 

"It is perhaps a cause of some slight monotony 
in Bret Harte's admirably touching and powerful 
pictures of the life and dwellers in the western 
districts, that his men and women are almost uni- 
versally and inevitably male or female good-for- 
► noughts.' It is part of his great merit to make 
one feel how much good may remain in ' good-for- 
noughts.' " 

In speaking of Bret Harte as "an agent for some 
Eastern Express Company," Mrs. Butler was of course 
thinking of what she had heard of his earlier experi- 
ences. The " Dickens story " referred to was " Our 
Mutual Friend," which was first published in stimu- 
lating but tantalising monthly numbers. Probably 
the unhappy criminal had read some of the earliest of 
these, and was quite as anxious to know the end 
of the story as he was concerned about the 
threatened and imminent horrible climax of his own 
reckless career. 

131 



FROM PACIFIC 

But besides writing diligently, making new 
friends, and accustoming himself to fresh sur- 
roundings, Bret Harte had another matter to oc- 
cupy time and attention in his changed life. When 
he first came to New York it was suggested that 
he, the literary celebrity of the day, should lecture 
on his Californian experiences. That his hatred 
of publicity prompted him to reject the proposal 
may readily be imagined, but the offers made to 
him were tempting ; he was not the man to selfishly 
shirk a duty, and, yielding to the persuasion of 
his friends, he reluctantly consented. Happily his 
appearance in a new character at once commanded 
success. That he felt this, and appreciated it, is 
shown in the following letter to his wife : — 

"MONONGHAELA HoUSE, PiTTSBURG, 

^'January gtJi, 1872, 2.50 p.m. 

" My dear Nan, — I telegraphed you twice from 
Washington and once to-day from Pittsburg. And 
I now send you many and happier returns of your 
birthday, dear little woman. I've gone along thus far 
and very fairly and without delay. My Washington 
lecture was crowded ; the audience almost as quick 
and responsive as the Boston folk, and the committee- 
men, to my great delight, told me that they made 
money by me. You will be sorry to hear that I 
felt dreadfully lonely on my Washington trip, and 
you will be sorrier to hear, you infamous woman, 

that my luncheon was mitigated by meeting Miss 

132 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

Binny Banks and her mother in the train. You 
may remember that I met Miss Banks at Burhngam's 
Httle dinner — but I don't know that I told you that 
she was lovely. She and ' her ma ' went with me 
to the lecture. 

" I called on Charlton at the British Minister's 
and had some talk with Sir Edward Thornton, which 
I have no doubt will materially affect the foreign 
policy of England. If I have said anything to 
promote a better feeling between the countries I 
am willing he should get the credit of it. 

" I took a carriage and went alone to the Capitol 
of my country. I had expected to be disappointed, 
but not agreeably. It is really a noble building — 
worthy of the Bepublic — vast, magnificent, sometimes 
a little weak in detail, but in intent always high 
toned, grand and large principled. I felt very 
proud until I looked in upon Congress in Session ; 
then it was very trying to compare the house with 
its tenants. 

" How you would have enjoyed this trip with 
me ! 

" Finding that I would be two or three hours in 
Baltimore on my way to Pittsburg, I telegraphed 
to Chiss Mayer to meet and sup with me. He met 
me at the depot ; we went to ' Guy's ' — a famous 
restaurant — and had a nice supper, and then we 
spent the last half- hour of my limit at Branty 
Mayer's house with your cousins. ' Miss Kate ' and 
' Jinny ' were on their way to a party, and there 

133 



FROM PACIFIC 

were one or two other sisters whom I had not seen 
before. They all regretted you were not with me, 
and made me promise to bring you in early spring 
to spend a few days. All that I saw of the road 
between Baltimore and Pittsburg was beautiful. 
Its scenery is noted, I believe, but in the early grey 
morning it came upon me, with its great white 
distances of Allyghannies and rivers as a special 
revelation. We passed the 'blue Juniata,' where 
you remember the ' bright Alfaretta ' roamed and 
,--^wept. The spot where she wept is plainly to be 
seen, and is still damp. 

" I am looking from the windows of my hotel on 
the Monongahela river, with all sorts of queer flat 
boats and barges passing and repassing. How you 
would have enjoyed it ! The mail leaves in a few 
minutes. I conclude you are better or you would 
telegraph me. Kiss the chickens for me, Nan, and 
look for the safe return speedily of your own 

Frank." 

The following letter from a friend by whom he set 
_ _!. great store vastly encouraged him : — 

"148 Charles Street, Boston, 
'■'■Sunday, Der. i^th, 1872. 

" My dear Harte, — Only a word or two to say 
you can have no idea how great a hit your lecture 
made here. I have met, since that auspicious even- 
ing, many men and women who heard it, and they 

134 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

are all of one opinion — that you cannot be beaten ! 
We had a lot of people here last night (we are always 
' at home ' on Saturday night), and most of our 
callers were in the Temple when you stood up for 
to speak. I never heard warmer encomiums from 
every mothers son and daughter of them. They 
fairly boiled over with delight as they recalled your 
numerous felicitous passages. ' They had never 
thought of Bret Harte as a capital speaker!' In 
short they swore so good a lecture, so delightful a 
speaker, had not been produced on that platform for 
many a year ! 

" In the present condition of this lurid and small- 
poxy city I feared your audience would not be of the 
kind best adapted to hear the best. But you had 
tip-toppers among your listeners — artists, clergymen — 
chaps with brains, sir, in every walk of life crowded 
your benches and applauded your wisdom and humour. 

" You will make hoards of sequins by that pro- 
duction, and I advise you to look sharp and see that 
your fee is as high as that of any old and popular 
stager in the country. Regards to Mrs. Harte. — 
Cordially yours, J. T. Fields." 

This was very pleasant hearing, and from his 
audiences' point of view all, throughout the tour, was 
couleur de rose. But of course all that glittered 
was not gold. Bret Harte always hated the platform, 
and naturally was from time to time troubled with 
the woes that beset the little world behind the scenes 



FROM PACIFIC 

even of the lecturer's modest desk, with hghts, manu- 
script, and glass of water for stage properties. 

Thus he revealed some of his sorrows to his wife : — 

"To Mrs. Anna Harte, No. 45 Fifth Avenue, 
New York City, U.S.A. 

"Montreal, March 2^th, 1873. 

" My dear Nan, — I telegraphed my arrival in 
Ottawa on the 21st and to-day my arrival here. 
But I did not write because I really did not know, 
and do not know now, whether I shall not have to 
give up the Canadian engagement entirely. 

" In Ottawa I lectured twice, but the whole thing 
was a pecuniary failure. There was scarcely enough 
money to pay expenses, and of course nothing to pay 

me with. has no money of his own, and 

although he is blamable for not thoroughly examin- 
ing the ground before bringing me to Ottawa, he was 
evidently so completely disappointed and miserable 
that I could not find it in my heart to upbraid him. 
So I simply told him that unless the Montreal receipts 
were sufficient to pay me for my lecture there, and a 
reasonable part of the money due me from Ottawa, I 
would throw the whole thing up. To-night will in all 
probability settle the question. Of course there are 
those who tell me privately that he is no manager, 
but I really do not see but that he has done all that 
he could, and that his only fault is in his sanguine 
and hopeful nature. 

" I did not want to write this disappointment to 

136 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

you as long as there was some prospect of better 
things. You can imagine, however, how I feel at this 
cruel loss of time and money — to say nothing of my 
health, which is still so poor. I had almost recovered 
from my cold, but at lecturing at Ottawa at the 
Skating Rink, a hideous, dismal damp barn — the 
only available place in town — I caught a fresh cold 
and have been coughing badly ever since. And you 
can well imagine that my business annoyances do not ^- 
add greatly to my sleep or appetite. 

" Apart from this the people of Ottawa have 
received me very kindly. They have vied with each 
other in social attention, and if I had been like John 
Gilpin, ' on pleasure bent,' they would have made 
my visit a success. The Governor-General of Canada 
and his wife — the Earl and Countess of Dufferin — 
invited me to stay with them at their seat, Rideau 
Hall, and I spent Sunday and Monday with them. 
Sir John and Lady Macdonald were also most polite 
and courteous. 

" I shall telegraph you to-morrow if I intend to 
return at once. Don't let this worry you, but kiss-^ 
the children for me and hope for the best. I would 
send you some money but there isn't any to send, 
and maybe I shall only bring back myself — Your 
affectionate Frank. 

" P.S.—26th. 

" Dear Nan, —- 1 did not send this yesterday, 
waiting to find the result of last night's lecture. It 

137 



FROM PACIFIC 

was 2o fair house and this mornmg paid me 150 

dollars, of which I send you the greater part. I 
lecture again to-night, with fair prosj^ects, and he is 
to pay something on account of the Ottawa engage- 
ment besides the fee for that night. I will write 
again from Ogdensburg. — Always yours, Frank." 

Herein lies a grievance in another and more divert- 
ing direction : — 

" For Mrs. Bret Harte, ' 

45 Fifth Avenue, New York, 

"St. Louis, Od. igth, 1873, Sunday, p.m. 

" My dear Anna, — As my engagement is not until 
the 2ist at Topeka, Kansas, I lie over here until 
to-morrow morning in preference to spending the extra 
day in Kansas. I've accepted the invitation of Mr. 
Hodges, one of the managers of the lecture course, 
to stay at his house. He is a good fellow, with the 
usual American small family and experimental house- 
keeping, and the quiet and change from the hotel is 
very refreshing to me. They let me stay in my own 
room — which by the way is hung with the chintz of 
our 49th Street house — and don't bother me with 
company. So I was very good to-day and went toU-^ 
church. There was fine singing. The contralto sang 
your best sentences from the Te Deum, ' We believe 
that Thou shalt come,' &c., &c., to the same minor 
chant that I used to admire. 

" The style of criticism that my lecture — or rather 
myself as a lecturer — has received, of which I send 

138 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

you a specimen, culminated this morning in an 
editorial in the Republican, which I shall send you, 
but have not with me at present. I certainly never 
expected to be mainly criticised for being what I am, 
not, a handsome fop ; but this assertion is at the 
bottom of all the criticism. They may be right — I 
dare say they are — in asserting that I am no orator, 
have no special faculty for speaking, no fire, no 
dramatic earnestness or expression, but when they 
intimate that I am running on my good looks — save 
the mark ! I confess I get hopelessly furious. You 
will be amused to hear that my gold ' studs ' have 
again become ' diamonds,' my worn-out shirts ' fault- 
less linen,' my haggard face that of a ' Spanish- 
looking exquisite,' my habitual quiet and ' used up ' 
way, 'gentle and eloquent languor.' But you will 
be a little astonished to know that the hall I spoke 
in was worse than Springfield, and notoriously so — that 
the people seemed genuinely pleased, that the lecture 
inaugurated the ' Star ' course very handsomely, and 
that it was the first of the first series of lectures ever 
delivered in St. Louis. 

" My dates in Kansas are changed thus, Topeka 
2ist, Achinson 22nd, Lawrence 23rd, Kansas City 
24th, but they are not distant from each other, and 
I shall probably get any letters without trouble. 

" I hope to hear that you have got a house and^ 
are settled, in your next letter. I shall write again this 
week, probably from Kansas City. — Your affectionate 

Frank." 
139 



FROM PACIFIC 

The allusion to the Te Deum had connection with 
Mrs. Bret Harte's beautiful singing voice. Her render- 
ing of sacred music was one of her husband's delights. 

The promised letter from Kansas soon came : — 

" For Mi^s. Bret Harte, 

Box 570 P.O., Marietown, New Jersey. 

"Lawuence, Kansas, October 2^rd, 1873. 

" My dear Anna, — I left Topeka, which sounds 
like a name Franky might have invented, early 
yesterday morning, but did not reach Achinson, only 
sixty miles distant, until seven o'clock at night — an 
hour before the lecture. The engine as usual had 
broken down, and left me at four o'clock fifteen miles 
from Achinson, on the edge of a bleak prairie with 
only one house in sight. But I got a saddle-horse — 
there was no vehicle to be had — and strapping my 
lecture and blanket to my back I gave my valise to 
a little yellow boy — who looked like a dirty terra- 
cotta figure — with orders to follow me on another 
horse, and so tore off towards Achinson. I got there 
in time ; the boy reached there two hours after. 

" I make no comment ; you can imagine the half- 
^, ^ciir>.k utterly disgusted man who glared at that audience 
over his desk that night, and d — d them inwardly 
in his heart. And yet it was a good audience, thor- 
oughly refined and appreciative, and very glad to see 
me. I was very anxious about this lecture, for it was 
a venture of my own, and I had been told that Achin- 
son was a rough place — energetic but coarse. I think 

I wrote you from St. Louis that I had found there 

140 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

were only three actual engagements in Kansas, and 
that my list which gave Kansas City twice was a 
mistake. So I accepted to take Achinson. I made 
a hundred dollars by the lecture, and it is yours, for 
yourself, Nan, to buy ' Minxes ' with, if you want, for 
it is over and above the amount Eliza and I footed 
up on my lecture list. I shall send it to you as soon 
as the bulk of the pressing claims are settled. 

" Everything thus far has gone well ; besides my 
lecture of to-night I have one more to close Kansas, 
and then I go on to St. Joseph. 

" I've been greatly touched with the very honest 
and sincere liking which these Western people seem, 
to have for me. They seem to have read everything 
I have written — and appear toappreci ate the__best. 
Think of a rough fellow in_a^earskin robe^and blue ^ 
shirt repeating to me ' Crucif iciar de Aeguiallo .' 
Their strange good taste and refinement under that 
rough exterior — even their tact — is very wonderful j 
to me. They are ' Kentucks ' and ' Dick BuUens ' 
with twice the refinement and tenderness of their 
Californian brethren. 

" And of course, as in all such places, the women 

contrast^ poorly with the men — even in feminine 

qualities. Somehow a man here may wear fustian_ 

and glaring colours and paper collars and yet keep 

his gentleness and delicacy, but a woman in glaring 

' Dolly Vardens ' and artificial flowers changes natures^- 

with him at once. 

" I've seen but one that interested me — an old 

141 



FROM PACIFIC 

negro wench. She was talking and laughing outside 
my door the other evening, but her laugh was so 
sweet and unctuous and musical — so full of breadth 
and goodness that I went outside and talked to her 
while she was scrubbing the stones. She laughed 
Jias a canary bird sings — because she couldn't help 
. it. It did me a world of good, for it was before ( 
)the lecture, at twilight, when I am very blue and ) 
I low tuned. She had been a slave. 

" I expected to have heard from you here. I've 
nothing from you or Eliza since last Friday when 
I got yours of the 12th. I shall not write again 
until I hear further. I shall direct this to Eliza's 
care, as I do not even know where you are. — Your 
affectionate Frank." 

It was a hard-working time, and no doubt the 
anxiety of the evening's lecture did much to destroy 
his day's enjoyment ; but in the course of his wander- 
ings he saw much that interested him, he was pleased 
at the heartiness of his receptions, and was without 
doubt glad to add grist to his mill. His chief annoy- 
ance was that his frequent journeys sorely interfered 
with the literary work that formed the backbone 
of his present income. In the following letter he 
refers to Stuart Hobson, the actor, who was to appear 
as Colonel Starbottle in his " Two Men of Sandy 
Bar." Of the production and fate of the play, of 
which great things were expected, I shall speak in 

another chapter. 

142 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

" To Mrs. Bret Harte. 

" Berkely Springs, Va., Saturday. 

" My dear Nan, — Pellis said he kept my note 
until he reached Washington instead of posting it 
at Baltimore, so that it must have reached you two 
days late. I telegraphed yesterday, thinking you 
might be worried. 

" I hardly believe I shall ever be able to leave 
Virginia. At least if I do I shall come back here 
instead of going to Europe. Such people as I have 
seen ! Imagine my sitting down to dinner with a 
gentleman in the dress of the early century — ruffles, 
even hag-ivig complete — a gentleman who has visited 
these Springs" for the last forty years ! Who re- 
members ' Maddison, Sir,' and ' Mousie, Sir,' and 
asked me what I thought of the poems of Matthew 
Prior ! I have seen people that I believed never 
existed off the stage — gouty old uncles in white 
flannel ; stiff old dowagers who personify the centen- 
nial. And all this undiscovered country within 400 
miles of New York. I never had such a chance in 
my life, and I look back upon poor Colonel Starbottle 
as an utter failure. If I could dress Robson and get 
him to speak as I heard the real Virginia Colonel 
Starbottle speak yesterday, I could make him famous. 

" I shall return Monday or Tuesday next, I think ; 
until then I hope you will not be worried. I am 
better physically and I think in every way. Don't 
mind my incoherency. I am writing just now to 

143 



FROM PACIFIC 

keep up with the ' post-boy ' — a real ' post-boy,' 
who is to pass here on his pony in five minutes. — 
Your affectionate Frank." 

Later a warning note of coming trouble was 
sounded. In New York and its vicinity Bret Harte, 
with an increased family and consequently increased 
expenses, was living at a far higher rate than in 
San Francisco. The welcome guest of every one, he 
was shown much and profuse hospitality, and, ever 
open-handed and generous, he loved to return it. 
But after a time the position became a source of 
anxiety to him. He bethought himself of his beloved 
^sop and the fable that told how : " An earthen 
pot, and one of brass, standing together on the river's 
brink, were both carried away by the flowing in of 
the tide. The earthen pot showed some uneasiness, 
as fearing he should be broken ; but his companion 
of brass bid him be under no apprehensions, for 
that he would take care of him. ' Oh,' replied the 
other, ' keep as far off as ever you can, I entreat 
you ; it is you I am most afraid of, for whether the 
stream dashes you against me, or me against you, I 
am sure to be the sufferer, and therefore, I beg of 
you, do not let us come near to one another.' " 

How quaint is the " application " appended to 
that famous old fable, and how fond he was of it, 
as he was, indeed, of each page of ^sop and every- 
thing associated with him : " A man of a moderate 

fortune, who is contented with what he has, and 

144 




Jint Ilaitc {circa 1870). 



[To face p. 144. 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

finds he can live happily upon it, should take care 
not to hazard and expose his felicity by consorting 
with the great and the powerful. People of equal 
conditions may float down the current of life without 
hurting each other ; but it is a point of some difficulty 
to steer one's course in the company of the great so^-^ — ' 
as to escape without a bulge. One would not choose 
to have one's little country-box situated in the 
neighbourhood of a very great man, for whether I 
ignorantly trespass upon him or he knowingly en- 
croaches upon me, I only am like to be the sufferer. 
I can neither entertain nor play with him upon his 
own terms ; for that which is moderation and diver- 
sion to him, in me would be extravagance and ruin." 

No doubt at the time of which I am writing 
Bret Harte was worried with the idea that he was 
somewhat dangerously drifting, and he had no desire 
to be in the position of the earthen pot, but he 
loved the society of his friends, and could not bear 
to seem indifferent to the great kindness shown 
him. 

But that his mind was troubled is shown by the 
following letter to his wife : — 

'* Mrs. Bret Harte, Sea Cliff House, 
Sea Cliff, L.I. 

" TTiursday Night. 

" Thank you, dear Nan, for your kind, hopeful ^1- — 
letter. I have been very sick ; very much disap- 
pointed, but I'm better now, and am only waiting 

145 K 



FROM PACIFIC 

isome money to return. I ought to have, for the 

work that I have done, more than would help us 
out of our difficulties. But it doesn't come, and 
even the money I've expected from the gapital for 
my story is signed by its creditors. That hope and 
the expectations I had from the paper and Piatt 
in the future amount to nothing. I have found that 
it is bankrupt. 

" Can you wonder, Nan, that I have kept this 
from you ? You have so hard a time of it there, 
and I cannot bear to have you worried if there is 
the least hope of a change in my affairs as they 
look, day by day. Piatt has been gone nearly a 
month, was expected to return every day, and only 
yesterday did I know positively of his inability to 

fulfil his promises. came here three days ago, 

and in a very few moments I learned from him 
that I need expect nothing for the particular service 
I had done him. I've been vilified anij abused in 
the papers for having received compensation for my 
services, when really and truly I have only received 
less than I should have got from any magazine or 
newspaper for my story. 

" I sent you the fifty dollars by Mr. D , 

because I knew you would be in immediate need,^ 
and there is no telegraph transfer office on Long 
Island. It was the only fifty I have made since 
I've been here. 

" I am waiting to hear from Osgood regarding 

an advance on that wretched story. He writes me 

146 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

»he does not quite like it. I shall probably hear 
from him to-night. When the money comes I shall 
come with it. 

>"God bless you and keep you and the children 
safe for the sake of Frank." 

Not unnaturally debts had been incurred, and 
not only did these cause him anxiety, but exaggerated 
reports concerning them angered him intensely. In 
this connection Mr. Noah Brooks relates the following 
story. A rich man in New York, a banker and 
broker, with an ambition to be considered a patron 
of the arts and literature, made much of the new 
literary lion, and from him Bret Harte, regarding 
the whole matter from a banking point of view, 
obtained ajdyances_of.^some five hundred dollars, in 
sums varying from five dollars to fifty dollars at a 
time. One New Year's Day Bret Harte, in as much 
wrath as he was ever capable of showing, handed 
a friend a note from the rich banker, in which the 
writer, who was not famous for being a generous 
giver, reminded him that this was the season of 
the year when business men endeavoured to enter 
a new era with a clean page in the ledger ; and 
that, in order to enable his literary friend to do 
that, he returned to him the I.O.UJs which, by 
way of security, had been signed from time to time. 
" Damn his impudence," exclaimed poor Bret Harte. 
"What are you going to do about it?" asked the 
friend. " Going to do about it ? " was the reply, 

147 



FROM PACIFIC 

with much emphasis on the first word. " Going ! I 
have made a new note for the full amount of these, 
and have sent it to him with an intimation that I 
never allow pecuniary matters to trespass on the 
domain of friendship." 

" He was utterly," Mr. Brooks continues, " desti- 
tute of what is sometimes called the ' money sense.' 
He could not drive a bargain, and he was an easy 
mark for any man who could. Consequently he was 
continually involved in troubles that he might have 
escaped with a little more financial shrewdness. 
■^ Once he lectured in Boston with a bailiff, or deputy- 
sheriff, sitting in the ante-room near an open door 
so that Bret Harte could not escape him. A literary 
friend good-naturedly rallied him on the situation, 
and the persecuted lecturer, laughing heartily, said, 
' Yes, that's it ; we can see it all now — the Fleet 
Prison, with Goldsmith, Johnson, and all the rest 
of the old masters in a bunch ! ' 

" Once when we were waiting on Broadway for 

a stage to take him down town, he said, as the 

lumbering vehicle hove in sight, ' Lend me a quarter ; 

I haven't money enough to pay my stage fare.' 

Two or three weeks later, when I had forgotten 

the incident, we stood in the same place waiting 

for the same stage, and Bret Harte, putting a quarter 

of a dollar in my hand, said : ' I owe you a quarter, 

and there it is. You hear men say that I never 

pay my debts, but ' (this with a chuckle) ' you can 

deny the slander. 

148 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

Another story was to the effect that while he 
Uved at Morristown he retained the postage stamps 
sent to him for his autographs, and these apphca- 
tions were so numerous that with them he paid his 
butcher's bill ; but that the slander had been denied 
on the authority of the butcher ! 

It is said that when he heard this invention 
he laughed more heartily than any one ; but though 
the humour of a particular canard may have tickled 
him, his sensitive nature winced under such implied 
slurs. His pen had made him one of the celebrities 
of the day, and though he was surrounded by many 
who could appreciate him at his true worth, he had 
to listen to the ever-existing crowd — existing, and 
certainly not diminishing, in every clime — of those 
who take an unholy joy in throwing stones. He 
who never cast a stone himself could not under- 
stand it. 

As, by the malicious, these rumours of American 
unpaid debts have been revived from time to time 
and require dispelling, I shall quote Mr. Joaquin 
Miller, who, writing of Bret Harte after his death, 
and speaking with authority, says : — 

" It was published up and down " (in California) 

i" for years that he left a lot of bills unpaid. When 

I returned to settle down here in the early eighties I 

found these stories furiously revived. I denied them. 

Then it was published that he had left a lot of unpaid 

bills in New York also. I wrote to John Hay, then 

editing The Tribune. Hay assured me that he did 

149 



FROM PACIFIC 

not owe one dollar in New York ; that he was a man 
of singularly strict sense of honour in money matters ; 
that he had once offered to assist him when ill in 
Washington, but that Bret Harte had seemed so hurt 
at the idea that he was sorry he had tried to help 
him. . . . Yes, our gifted Secretary of State knew 
Bret Harte a heap better than any one else, and, as 
you can see, loved him and trusted him entirely. 

" I may mention that after I had the letter from 
Hay I advertised here in St. Louis for any and all 
bills against Bret Harte, promising to pay in full 
without regard to the statute of limitations. Only 
one man, a printer, put in any sort of a claim, and 
this one man's own statement was to the effect that 
Bret Harte paid the most of the bill, claiming that 
was all he had agreed to pay. Sic ! " 

In face of such evidence as this surely the viper — 
slander — may be ruthlessly trodden under foot. 

But I am afraid that the poor author knew that 
he was calumniated, and that it sorely vexed him as 
he incessantly toiled with his pen and grappled with 
his arrears. I believe he was always well paid for 
his work — or that at any rate he got the full price of 
his day. In talking of these times to me he never 
complained on this score, though he has often said 
that he got better remuneration for his work in 
England. 

Of the writer's emoluments Grant Allen has 

bitterly declared : " Brain for brain, in no market 

can you sell your abilities to such poor advantage. 

150 



TO ATLANTIC SHORES 

Don't take to literature if you've capital enough in 
hand to buy a good broom, and energy enough to 
annex a vacant crossing." 

Bret Harte never had occasion to feel this, but the 
old fear that his pen might either fail him, or not 
earn a sufficiency for his household, lay heavily upon 
him. Once more he sought additional employment, 
and, though he had no desire to leave America, when 
the Consulate of Crefeld in Prussia^ was offered to 
him he accepted it. And so it came about that (in 
1878), having established his wife and family at Sea 
Cliff, he quitted his native land, little thinking he was 
never to see it again. 



151 



CHAPTEK V 

FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD 

Although, as we have seen, the Daily Neivs feared 
that not a few of the most intelhgent EngHsh readers 
would be found asking, " Who is Mr. Bret Harte ? 
and what has he said or done?" he had had his 
enthusiastic admirers on this side of the Atlantic ever 
since the first appearance of The Overland Monthly, 
and when, on his way to Crefeld, he first landed on 
British soil, he must have known he would have a 
hearty reception. 

Thomas Hood the younger, or Tom Hood, as he 
was generally called, was among the first, if not the 
very first Englishman to discover and delight in the 
crack of the new American whip. 

To the first volume of his stories published in 
England, Hood wrote an introduction, and in it he 
said: "Early in the January of 1869 I received a 
batch of new magazines, which on inspection proved 
to be the first five numbers of The Overla^id Monthly, 
which had been started at San Francisco in the July 
preceding. I had for some time been acquainted 
with that clever and most audacious print. The San 
Francisco Newsletter, and was therefore prepared to 
find merits in the new periodical. Nevertheless to 

152 



THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD 

eyes accustomed to the gorgeous covers and superfine 
getting up of our English magazines, the appearance 
of the newcomer was not attractive. It was printed 
on paper seemingly related to that species in which 
>Beauty puts away her ringlets for the night, and its 
brown wrapper was of texture and tint suggestive of 
parcels of grocery. But if the exterior was unpre- 
tentious, the contents were attractive enough. The 
magazine had as it were a fragrance of its own, like 
' a spray of Western pine.' The articles were fresh 
and original, the subjects they treated of were novel 
and interesting. I believe I read every page of those 
five numbers, and I looked forward anxiously for the 
arrival of the sixth. One feature in the magazine I 
commend to the consideration of editors generally. 
Each monthly number had its table of contents, 
wherein the articles were anonymous ; but in the 
index in the sixth, and last in each volume, the 
names of the authors were given. It gave a peculiar 
relish to one's reading, after one became acquainted 
with the various styles of the writers, to guess the 
authors, and compare conjectures with the index. 

" The editor's name did not appear, but in a 
gossip entitled ' Etc' at the end of each number, he 
from time to time inserted little bits of verse that 
had a local flavour that was very agreeable. The 
second number contained ' The Luck of Roaring 
Camp.' The critiques on new books here and there 
betrayed his hand. The ' Etc' in number five opened 
with a quaint mention of ' an earth-wave, which, 

^53 



FROM THE NEW WORLD 

passing under San Francisco, had left its record upon 
some sheets of the number, by the falHng of the roof 
of the building in which they were stored,' and asking 
readers, it having been too late to reprint, to pardon 
' any blemishes on those signatures to which the great 
earthquake had added its mark.' 

" The sixth number arrived, and turning to the 
index, I found the authors' names were given there, 
and that the writer of the articles which had inter- 
ested me most was ' F. B. Harte.' With the first 
number of the second volume, ' The Holiday Number,' 
he resumed the ' Roaring Camp ' vein, in ' The Out- 
casts of Poker Flat.' 

" From that time he became a writer to be looked 
for, and he never disappointed me. In prose or verse 
he was sure to be good, whether he was humorous or 
pathetic. In volume iii. the index made a further 
revelation of his name as ' Fr. Bret Harte.' " 

To his discoveries in the "gossip entitled 'Etc.,'" 
I think Tom Hood might have safely added the fol- 
lowing : — 

" ' There are,' says a pleasant authority in a late 
number of the Overland, 'more than 5000 Springs 
in the Coast Range.' How many there are in other 
parts of California we cannot estimate, for our spas 
have yet to be written up. Oral tradition gives a 
glowing but vague account of their peculiar and won- 
derful virtues. We all know some man who knew 
another man who, after having been given over by 
the faculty, was cured by two baths in the Scald- 

154 



TO THE OLD 

ing Spring, the Lukewarm Spring, or the Spring 
of Abominable Odours. We all know the familiar 
Thompsonian Spring of San Andreas, where Nature 
offers boiling pennyroyal tea and boneset to the 
exhausted invalid, and the Compound Cathartic 
Spring, of San Antonio, whose waters, impregnated 
with magnesia, percolating a plantation of rhubarb, 
are so famous ; but we want details. The fol- 
lowing is a contribution towards making up those 
deficiencies : — 

THE ARSENICAL SPRING OF SAN JOAQUIN. 

Of all the fountains that poets sing — 

Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring, 

Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth ; 

Wells — with bottoms of doubtful truth — 

In shoi-t, of all the springs of Time 

That were ever flowing in fact or rhyme, 

That were ever tasted, felt or seen, 

There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin. 

Anno Domini Eighteen-seven, 

Father Dominguez (now in Heaven — 

Ohiit, Eighteen twenty-seven) 

Found the spring, and found it, too, 

By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe, 

For his beast — a descendant of Balaam's ass — 

Stopped on the instant, and would not pass. 

The Padre thought the omen good. 

And bent his lips to the trickling flood ; 

Then — as the chronicles declare. 

On the honest faith of a true believer — 

His cheeks, though wasted, lank and bare, 

Filled like a withered russet-pear 

In the vacuum of a glass receiver, 

^S5 



FROM THE NEW WORLD 

And the snows that seventy winters bring 
Melted away in that magic spring. 

Such, at least, was the wondrous news 
The Padre brought into Santa Cruz. 
The Church, of course, had its own views 
Of who were worthiest to use 
The magic spring ; but the prior claim 
Fell to the aged, sick, and lame. 
Far and wide the people came : 
Some from the healthful Aptos creek 
Hastened to bring their helpless sick ; 
Even the fishers of rude Soquel 
Suddenly found they were far from well ; 
The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo 
Said, in fact, they had never been so ; 
And all were ailing — strange to say — 
From Pescadero to Monterey. 

Over the mountain they poured in 
With leathern bottles and bags of skin. 
Through the caiions a motley throng 
Trotted, hobbled, and limped along. 
The fathers gazed at the moving scene 
With pious joy and with souls serene, 
And then — a result perhaps foreseen — 
They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin. 

Not in the eyes of Faith alone 

The good effects of the waters shone ; 

But skins waxed rosy, eyes grew clear, 

Of rough vacquero and muleteer. 

Angular forms were rounded out, 

Limbs grew supple and waists grew stout ; 

And as for the girls — for miles about 

They had no equal ! To this day. 

From Pescadero to Monterey, 

You'd still find eyes in which are seen 

The liquid graces of San Joaquin. 

156 



TO THE OLD 

There is a limit to human bliss, 

And the Mission of San Joaquin had this : 

None went abroad to roam or stay, 

But they fell sick in the queerest way — 

A singular sort of malade du payi< 

With gastric symptoms ; so they spent 

Their days in a sensuous content. 

Caring little for things unseen 

Beyond their bowers of living green — 

Beyond the mountains that lay between 

The world and the Mission of San Joaquin. 

Winter passed, and the summer came ; 

The trunks of madw/le, all aflame. 

Here and there through the underwood 

Like pillars of fire starkly stood. 

All of the breezy solitude 

Was filled with the spicing of pine and bay 

And resinous odours mixed and blended. 

And dim and ghost-like far away 

The smoke of the burning woods ascended. 

Then of a sudden the mountains swam. 

The rivers piled their floods in a dam ; 

The ridge above Los Gatos creek 

Arched its spine in a feline fashion ; 

The forests waltzed till they grew sick, 

And Nature shook in a speechless passion ; 

And, swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen, 

The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin 

Vanished, and never more was seen ! 

Two days passed ; the Mission folk 

In languid patience bore their yoke ; 

Some of them looked a trifle white. 

But that, no doubt, was from earthquake fright. 

Three days ; there was sore distress. 

Headache, nausea, giddiness. 

Four days ; faintings, tenderness 

Of the mouth and fauces, and in less 



FKOM THE NEW WORLD 

Than one week — here the stoiy closes — 
We won't continue the prognosis — 
Enough that now no trace is seen 
Of the Spring or Mission of San Joaquin. 

MOEAL. 

You see the point ? Don't be too quick 
To break bad habits — better stick, 
Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic ! " 

This was surely Bret Harte's. The old experiences 
of the drug store run through it, and he was always 
interested in the effect of arsenic on the human 
system. I have already made mention of one of his 
latest stories (" Liberty Jones's Discovery ") in which 
a plain girl becomes beautiful by unconsciously drink- 
ing of and bathing in the waters of an arsenical 
spring. There in a serious narrative he described 
the symptoms humorously alluded to in the fore- 
going stanzas. 

Referring to his career before the appearance of 

this magazine, Hood says : "I do not think that as 

yet the public had discovered him ; for Joaquin 

Miller, when in London, told me a volume of his 

poems, entitled ' The Lost Galleon,' published in 

1867, had not met the success it deserved ; " and adds, 

" I must, in concluding this Preface, acknowledge my 

indebtedness for the chief facts in it to my friend 

Mr. Justin McCarthy, who has on his recent return 

from America brought a few pleasant words from 

Bret Harte to me, in allusion to my having been one 

of the first to take note of his work in England, a 

158 



TO THE OLD 

fact due rather to my good luck in receiving early 
copies of the Overland than to any merit in recog- 
nising what any one who reads his contributions 
must have recognised — the undoubted genius of 
Bret Harte." 

In the early days of the Overland, Tom Hood 
was the editor of Fun. He was an exceedingly 
popular man, and he loved to gather around him the 
best known and rising young writers of the day. 
These included T. W. Kobertson (the dramatist), the 
brothers Brough, Clement Scott, H. J. Byron, W. S. 
Gilbert, Geoffrey Prowse, Edmund Yates, Sutherland 
Edwards, Godfrey Turner, and others whose names 
have since become household words. Those were the 
golden days of literary Bohemia, that pleasant land 
of whose Capital poor Prowse wrote — 

" The longitude's rather uncertain, 
The latitude's equally vague ; 
But that person I pity who knows not the city, 
The beautiful city of Prague ; " 

and within the gates of that Capital the name of 
Bret Harte, thanks to Hood, soon became a familiar 
one. If he had only known it, the young American 
author had enlisted in London a strong and unique 
body of " Koaring Camp " and " Poker Flat " en- 
thusiasts, and one and all longed to see him and 
thank him for the delight his work had given them. 

I was too young to make one of that " goodly 
company," but thanks to the kindness of my dear old 

159 



FROM THE NEW WORLD 

friend, E. A. Sothern (the comedian of Lord Dun- 
dreary fame), I made firm friendships with many of 
them, became infected with their ardour, and have 
ever remained one of the most loyal of Bret Harte's 
followers. 

When I think of the hours and hours of keen 
pleasure his writings have given me, and the numbers 
of years over which that joy has continued, I feel I 
can never be too grateful to his memory. I have 
always felt with Tom Hood that he never dis- 
appointed me. In prose or verse he was sure to be 
good, whether he was humorous or pathetic. I 
know that some latter day critics have held that 
after the lapse of years his stories deteriorated in 
merit, but on that point I have something to say in 
another chapter. 

In the pages of Fun, in the dying sixties and the 
dawning seventies, Hood was never tired of bringing 
the new author before the British public, and as the 
paper circulated widely and carried weight, gained 
for him an ever increasing number of readers. Poor 
Hood ! How he would have rejoiced to listen, as I 
have often done, to Bret Harte's delighted and 
appreciative talk of his father's touching and spark- 
ling poems. He knew many of them by heart, and as 
he sat by the fireside on a winter's night he loved to 
quote from them. 

But even better than all this, Charles Dickens 

had found him out. His biographer, John Forster, 

records : — 

1 60 



TO THE OLD 

" Not many months before my friend's death he 

had sent me two Overland Monthlies, containing two 

sketches by a young American writer far away in 

CaHfornia, ' The Luck of Roaring Camp ' and ' The 

Outcasts of Poker Flat,' in which he had found such 

subtle strokes of character as he had not anywhere 

else in late years discovered ; the manner resembling 

himself, but the matter fresh to a degree that had 

surprised him ; the painting in all respects masterly, 

and the wild rude thing painted a quite wonderful 

reality, I have rarely known him more honestly 

moved. A few months passed ; telegraph wires 

flashed over the world that he had passed away on 

the 9th of June, and the young writer of whom he 

had then written to me, all unconscious of that praise, 

put his tribute of gratefulness and sorrow into the 

poem called ' Dickens in Camp.' It embodies the 

same kind of incident which had so affected the 

master himself in the papers to which I have referred ; 

it shows the gentler influences which, in even those 

Californian wilds, can restore outlawed ' roaring 

campers ' to silence and humanity ; and there is 

hardly any form of posthumous tribute which I can 

imagine likely to have better satisfied his desire of 

fame than one which should thus connect with the 

special favourite among all his heroines, the restraints 

and authority exerted by his genius over the rudest 

and least civilised of competitors in that far, fierce 

race for wealth." 

Most English readers are familiar with that 

161 L 



FROM THE NEW WORLD 

beautiful poem which tells how a party of rough 
Californian miners, sitting by the blazing camp-fire 
at the foot of the snow-capped Sierras, with the moon 
slowly drifting above the pines, and to the accom- 
paniment of the endless music of the swiftly-flowing 
river, were held enthralled while one of them, from a 
treasured copy of " The Old Curiosity Shop," read to 
them the touching narrative of the devoted Nell and 
her weak old grandfather's wanderings o'er English 
meadows. Thousands of English men and women 
were grateful to the American poet who thus paid his 
tender tribute to their loved author : — 



The roaring camp-fire with rude humour painted 

The ruddy tints of health 
On haggard face and form that diooped and fainted 

In the fierce race for wealth. 

Till one arose and from his pack's scant treasure 

A hoarded volume drew, 
And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure 

To hear the tale anew. 



And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken 

As by some spell divine — 
Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken 

F)-om out the gusty pine. 

Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire : 

And he who wrought that spell ? 
Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire. 

Ye have one tale to tell. 
162 



TO THE OLD 

Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story 

Blend with the breath that thrills 
With hop-vine's incense all the pensive glory 

That fills the Kentish hills. 

And on that grave where English oak and holly, 

And laurel wi-eatha entwine, 
Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly 

This spray of "Western pine ! " 

July 1870. 

Bret Harte told me the little history of that 
ever-green poem, of how it was written on the day 
that the news of the death of Dickens reached him 
at San Rafael, California, while the last sheets of the 
July Overland, already edited by him, were going to 
press. After stifling the emotion that he felt (for he 
dearly loved his "Boz"), he hurriedly sent his first 
and only draft of the verses, which were destined to 
live so long, to the office at San Francisco. They 
were written in two or three hours, and at his 
urgent request the publication of the magazine was 
held back until they could appear. 

When Mr. Frederic G. Kitton was preparing his 
sumptuous volume, " Charles Dickens by Pen and 
Pencil," he wrote to Bret Harte asking him if it 
would be possible for him to insert in it a facsimile of 
the poem as it was written. To this request he had 
reply :— 

"^ May 2,otJ), 1890. 

" Dear Sir, — I am very sorry that I have not 

the original MS. of ' Dickens in Camp.' I hurriedly 

sent the first and only draft of the verses to the office 

163 



FROM THE NEW WORLD 

at San Francisco, and I suppose after passing the 
printer's and proof-reader's hands, it lapsed into the 
usual oblivion of all editorial ' copy.' 

" I remember that it was very hastily but very 
honestly written, and it is fair to add it was not 
until later that I knew for the first time that those 
gentle and wonderful eyes, which I was thinking of 
as being closed for ever, had ever rested kindly upon 
a line of mine. — I am. Dear Sir, yours very sincerely, 

Bret Harte." 

With this letter he enclosed a copy of the poem 
in his own handwriting. Needless to say this was re- 
produced, and it exists in the beautiful monument 
Mr. Kitton has raised to the memory of the master 
he so well loves and so loyally serves. 

Concerning his early manuscripts Bret Harte was 
careless. Unluckily he set no more store by them 
than the ordinary journalist does by his "copy" for 
the press. Absurd stories have been told about them. 
Some years ago it was currently reported that the 
original draft of "The Heathen Chinee" was safely 
lodged in the British Museum. He wanted to dis- 
prove this, and asked me to make inquiries about it. 
Taking some pains I did so, and found that the 
Museum authorities, while all admiring Ah Sin, 
Bill Nye, and Truthful James, knew nothing of the 
document of which I was in search. 

Well, to return to my subject. On the day when, 

amidst " a rain of tears and flowers" — many flowers 

164 



TO THE OLD 

brought by unknown hands, many tears shed from 
unknown eyes — Charles Dickens was laid to rest in 
Westminster Abbey, a letter in his handwriting (the 
magic handwriting that brought and still brings 
merriment and comfort to millions), addressed to 
Bret Harte, was on its way across the Atlantic. 
It was a letter in his usual hearty, breezy style, 
telling the young author how highly he thought of 
his work, asking him to contribute to All the Year 
Round (of which he was then editor), and bidding 
him, when he came to England, which he was " certain 
soon to do," to visit him at his delightful home at 
Gad's Hill—" a spot with which you are no doubt 
already familiar in connection with one William 
Shakespeare and a certain Sir John FalstafF." 

Bret Harte's first visit to London was perforce a 
short one. There he found his old friend Joaquin 
Miller, who concerning it made this record : — 

" He came to me in London late in the seventies, 
on his way to the Consulate at Crefeld, up the Rhine, 
a piteously small place for such a large man. He 
had a French dictionary in one pocket, he told me, 
half laughing, and a German dictionary in the other. 
London wanted to see him of course, and although 
' the season ' was over, all the literary men and 
women gathered about, and were simply charmed by 
his warm-hearted and perfect ways. ' George Eliot ' 
asked after John Hay, and told Bret Harte that one 
of his poems was the finest thing in our language 

" He could not rest until he stood by the grave of 

165 



THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD 

Dickens. But I drove him here and I drove him 
there to see the Hving. The dead would keep. But 
at last, one twilight, I led him by the hand to where 
some plain letters, in a broad, flat stone, just below 
the bust of Thackeray, read ' Charles Dickens.' 

" Bret Harte is dead now, and it will not hurt him 
in politics, where they seem to want hard and heart- 
less men for high places — not hurt him in politics or 
in anything anywhere — to tell the plain truth, how 
he tried to speak, but choked up, how tears ran down 
and fell on the stone as he bowed his bare head very 
low ; how his hand trembled as I led him away." 

Bret Harte was, indeed, a true believer in the 
genius of Charles Dickens. His knowledge of his 
books was unrivalled, and he could not only enjoy 
his humour, but appreciate to the utmost his pathos. 
He could have passed Charles Calverley's famous 
" Pickwick " Examination Paper with honours. 



i66 






CHAPTEE VI 

THE CONSUL 

With his own irresistible blend of mirth and sadness 

Bret Harte often spoke to me of the awful sense of 

loneliness that came over him when he found himself 

a solitary stranger in Crefeld. It was a keen sense 

of duty that had induced him to leave his family 

and friends in America ; he had no doubt hated the 

idea of his self-imposed exile, and now that the test 

point had come he found it almost unendurable. In 

the evenings he would stroll listlessly around the 

unknown streets longing to see a face that would 

greet him with a smile, some familiar figure that 

would extend to him the hand of welcome ; but he 

was a stranger among people speaking a strange 

language, and the sense of his isolation troubled him 

sorely. He became very sad when he recalled those 

early days at Crefeld, and when it was suggested 

that Mill had said, " Solitude, in the sense of being 

frequently alone, is necessary to the formation of any 

depth of character," he answered, " Yes, yes, that's 

true enough, but Mill didn't think of my solitude in 

that uncongenial German town." 

The following letter to his wife tells of his 

endurances :— 

167 



THE CONSUL 

" Mrs. Bret Harte, 

Sea Cliff Hotel, Long Island. 

" Crefeld, July 17, 1878. 

"My dear Nan, — At last! I arrived here at 
eight o'clock this morning, after a long sleepless ride 
of twelve hours from Paris, and fomid your letter of 
June 28th awaiting me. It was only a day's later 
news, but it was the first news I had from home since 
I left three weeks ago. 

" I left London Friday morning and reached Paris 

the same night, intending to come here the next day, 

but I found myself so worn out that I lingered at 

Paris until last night — three days. I saw Dora and 

Gertie. They were both glad to see me, were very 

kind, and found a nice little hotel for me, and helped 

me in many ways in my lingual helplessness, although 

I was dreadfully disappointed that they could not 

come to Crefeld with me, where so much depended 

upon my having some friend with me who understood 

the language. But I have audaciously travelled alone 

nearly four hundred miles, through an utterly foreign 

country, on one or two little French and German 

phrases, and a very small stock of assurance, and 

have delivered my letters to my predecessor, and 

shall take possession of the Consulate to-morrow. 

Mr. , the present incumbent, appears to me — 

I do not know how far I shall modify my impression 

hereafter — as a very narrow, mean, ill-bred, and not 

over-bright Puritanical German. It was my intention 

to appoint him my Vice-Consul — an act of courtesy 

168 



THE CONSUL 

suggested both by my own sense of right and Mr. 
Lenard's advice, but he does not seem to deserve it, 
and has even received my suggestion of it with the 
suspicion of a mean nature. But at present I fear 
I may have to do it, for I know no one else here — 
I am to all appearance utterly friendless ; I have not 
received the first act of kindness or courtesy from 
any one, and I suppose this man sees it. I shall go 
to Bavaria to-morrow to see the Consul there, who 
held this place as one of his dependencies, and under 

whose directions was, and try to make matters 

straight. 

" It's been up-hill work ever since I left New 
York, but I shall try to see it through, please God ! 
I don't allow myself to think over it at all, or I 
should go crazy. I shut my eyes to it, and in doing 
so perhaps I shut out what is often so pleasant to 
a traveller's first impressions, but thus far London 
has only seemed to me a sluggish nightmare through 
which I have waked, and Paris a confused sort of 
hysterical experience. I had hoped for a little kind- 
ness and rest here. Perhaps it may come. To-day 
I found here (forwarded from London) a kind little 
response to my card from Froude, who invites me 
to come to his country place — an old seaport village 
in Devonshire. If everything had gone well here — 
if I can make it go well here — I shall go back to 
London and Paris for a vacation of a few weeks, and 
see Froude at least. 

" At least, Nan, be sure I've written now the 

169 



THE CONSUL 

worst ; I think things must be better soon. I shall, 

please God, make some friends in good time, and will 

try and be patient. But I shall not think of sending 

for you until I see clearly that I can stay myself 

If the worst comes to the worst I shall try to stand 

it for a year, and save enough to come home and 

begin anew there. But I could not stand it to see 

you break your heart here through disappointment, 

as I mayhap may do. 

" I shall write again in a day or two when I have 

taken my place. — Your affectionate 

Frank. 

"P.S. — My health is pretty fair. It would be 
unfair to judge of it now until I get over my 
ennui." 

It is characteristic of Bret Harte that when within 
a few hours he saw a glimpse of blue in his cloudy 
sky, he did not wait for a " day or two," but hastened 
to send home more cheering news. 

" Mrs. Bret Harte, 

Sea Cliff Hotel, Sea Cliff, Long Island. 

"Crefeld, July 17, 1878, Midnight. 
" My dear Nan, — I wrote and mailed you a letter 
this afternoon that I fear was rather disconsolate, 
so I sit down to-night to send another, which I hope 
will take a little of the blues out of the first. Since 
I wrote I have had some further conversation with 

my predecessor, Mr. , and I think I can manage 

170 




Bret Harte. From the oripincil painfinn hy John Pettie, B.A. 

[To face p. 170. 



THE CONSUL 

matters with him. He has hauled in his horns 
considerably since I told him that the position I 
offered him — as far as the honour of it went — 
was better than the one he held. For the one 
thing pleasant about my office is that the dignity 
of it has been raised on my account. It was only 
a dependence — a Consular agency — before it was 
offered to me. 

" I feel a little more hopeful, too, for I have 
been taken out to a ' fest '—or a festival — of one 
of the viners, and one or two of the people were 
a little kind. I forced myself to go ; those German 
festivals are distasteful to me, and I did not care 
to show my ignorance of their language quite so 
prominently, but I thought it was the proper thing 
for me to do. It was a very queer sight. About five 
hundred people were in an artificial garden beside an 
artificial lake, looking at artificial fireworks, and 
yet as thoroughly enjoying it as if they were 
children. Of course there was beer and wine./ 
Here as in Paris everybody drinks, and all the 
time, anJ^ nobody gets drunk, "^eer, beer, beer ; 
and meals, meals, meals ; food and drink, and drink 
and food again. Everywhere the body is wor- 
shipped. Beside them we are but unsubstantial 
spirits. 

" I write this in my hotel, having had to pass 
through a mysterious gate and so into a side court- 
yard and up a pair of labyrinthine stairs, to my 

dim ' zimmer ' or chamber. The whole scene 

171 



THE CONSUL 

as I returned to-night looked as it does on the 
stage, the lantern over the iron gate, the inn 
strutting out into the street with a sidewalk not a 
foot wide. I know now from my observations both 
here and in Paris and London where the scene- 
painters at the theatres get their subjects. Those 
impossible houses — those unreal silent streets all 
exist in Europe. 

" Good-night. I go to Bavaria to-morrow. 

Frank. 

" I send Frankie a little book of songs which were 
sung by the people at the ' fest.' Tell him to 
look at page 13, and try to get it translated and 
imagine how his papa felt when he heard those 
grown men sing it. I think you will recognise it 
at once." 

In the course of one of his solitary rambles in 
the Crefeld streets, he found himself listlessly gaz- 
ing at a bookseller's window, and there in the 
displayed volumes he saw the name of 

Bret Harte. 

In a moment his feelings changed. If he was so 
far a stranger in the land, his works had preceded 
him ! That was something / Alone, and in a foreign 
town, he was face to face with his own name, and 
knew that it was honoured. This episode acted 
as a glorious tonic. He bought a copy of one 

of the books containing his translated work and 

172 



THE CONSUL 

sent it to his young son. Here is a letter to 
him : — 

" Mr. Francis King Hakte, 
Sea Cliff Hotel, 

Sea Cliff, Long Island, 
I New York. 

"Crefeld, July 25, 1878. 
" My dear Frankie, — I was very glad to get 
' your letter, although the Private Secretary required 
spanking for writing so badly. The letter was 
good enough for a bad boy like you, but wouldn't 
do for a Private Secretary just yet. And in this 
I country of wonderful schools there are little boys 
that I have met who speak two or three languages 
and write even their own difficult one elegantly. 
1 Of course to do this they have to go to school at 
' 7 o'clock in the morning, and do not come home 
j until 5 P.M. It will please you to know that if 
you go to school here, you are entitled to a 
I different coloured gold-lace cap, for your different 
classes as you are promoted. The boys wear them 
I here and are very proud of their rank. It is really 
a very pretty sight to see them trooping by, with 
j their books in a neat knapsack on their backs. It 
I is not to me so pretty a sight, however, to see a 
t tall soldier dragging a boy to school, who is 
! dilatory or a truant, for here education is com- 
pulsory. It is an offence not to go to school — if 
you are well. 

"I cannot send you a photograph of 'our 

173 



THE CONSUL 

Palace,' but I think I will presently have a picture 
taken of the Consulate and the two very pretty 
rooms that I have hired for the office. I lived 
for some days at the ' Hotel Wildenmann,' i.e. 
' Wildman,' a very old and very uncomfortable 
building. But a day or two ago one of the 
wealthiest men in this place asked me to come and 
stay for a few days at his house — a very beautiful 
place with a large garden. His family are away, 
and we live together in this great house like 
Princes, only that German Princes have meals 
six times a day and drink a great deal of wine. 
Everybody in Germany of wealth lives in the open 
air in summer as much as he can, so that we 
breakfast in one summer-house, and have dinner in 
another, and supper in another, served by people 
in livery, so that it is a gorgeous picnic all the 
time, and not like home one bit. 

" We drove out the other day through a lovely 
road bordered with fine poplar trees, and more like 
a garden walk than a country road, to the Phine, 
which is but two miles and a half from this place. 
The road had been built by Napoleon the First when 
he was victorious everywhere, and went straight 
on through everybody's property, and even over 
their dead bones. Suddenly to the right we saw 
the ruins of an old castle, vine clad, and crumbling, 
exactly like a scene on the stage. It was all very 
wonderful. 

" But papa thought, after all, that he was glad 

174 



THE CONSUL 

his boys lived in a country that was as yet quite 
pure and siveet and good, and where every field 
did not seem to cry out with the remembrance of 
.bloodshed and wrong, and where so many people 
had lived and suffered, that to-night, under this 
clear moon, their very ghosts seemed to throng 
the road and dispute our right of way. Be thankful, 
my dear boy, that you are an American. Papa 
was never so fond of his country before as in this 
land that has been so great, so powerful, and so 
very, very hard and wicked. America is the country 
of glowing youth and unwritten history, and it 
rests with such as you to make it great. 

" There is a moral somewhere in this, which I 
dare say mamma will find for you, if she and you 
together can read this scrawl. — Your affectionate 
papa, father of Private Secretary, 

Frankie Harte." 

The good people who, while professing to admire 
the writings of Bret Harte, never tire of saying 
that he produced nothing but stories about Cali- 
fornia and its gold-seekers, could, if they only took 
the trouble to do so, easily learn from his published 
works how completely he interested himself in his 
environment wherever it might be, and how his 
experience as Consul, whether in Crefeld or Glasgow, 
illumined some of his choicest work. 

Though he was never particularly happy in Ger- 
many he took careful observations of his surroundings, 

175 



THE CONSUL ^ 

and as his subsequent records, worked into fiction 
form, are really autobiographical notes, I feel I must, 
if only to convince the good people to whom I have 
referred, allude to them here. 

Take, for example, his whimsically conceived and 
perfectly concluded little romance, " Unser Karl," in 
which he said : — 

" The American Consul for Schlachtstadt had just 
turned out of the broad Konig's Allde into the little 
square that held his consulate. Its residences also 
seemed to him to wear that singularly uninhabited air 
peculiar to a street scene in a theatre. The facades, 
with their stiff, striped wooden awnings over the 
windows, were of the regularity colour and pattern 
only seen on the stage, and conversation carried on in 
the street below always seemed to be invested with 
that perfect confidence and security which surrounds 
the actor in his painted desert of urban perspective. 
Yet it was a peaceful change to the other byways 
and highways of Schlachtstadt — which were always 
filled with an equally unreal and mechanical soldiery, 
who appeared to be daily taken out of their boxes of 
' caserne ' or depot and loosely scattered all over the 
pretty linden-haunted German town. There were 
soldiers standing on street corners, soldiers staring 
woodenly into shop windows, soldiers halted suddenly 
into stone, like lizards, at the approach oi ojffiziere — 
qffiziere lounging stiffly, four abreast, sweeping the 
pavement with their trailing sabres all at one angle. 

There were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades of 

176 



THE CONSUL 

blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with glittering 
lances and pennons, with or without a band, formally 
parading ; there were straggling ' fatigues ' or ' details ' 
coming round the corners ; there were dusty, business- 
like columns of infantry, going nowhere and to no 
purpose. And they one and all seemed to be ivound up, 
for that service, and apparently always in the same 
place. In the band of their caps — invariably of one 
pattern — was a button, in the centre of which was a 
square opening or keyhole. The Consul was always 
convinced that through this keyhole opening, by 
means of a key, the humblest caporal wound up his 
file, the Hauptmann controlled his lieutenants and 
non-commissioned officers, and even the General him- 
self, wearing the same cap, was subject (through his 
cap) to a higher moving power. In the suburbs, when 
the supply of soldiers gave out, there were sentry- 
boxes ; when these dropped off there were ' caissons ' 
or commissary waggons. And lest the military idea 
should ever fail from out the Schlachtstadt burgher's 
mind, there were police in uniform, street-sweepers in 
uniform, the ticket-takers, guards, and sweepers at 
the Bahnhof were in uniform, but all wearing the 
same kind of cap, with the probability of having been 
wound up freshly each morning for their daily work. 
Even the postman delivered peaceful invoices to the 
Consul with his side-arms and the air of bringing 
despatches from the field of battle, and the Consul 
saluted, and felt for a few moments the whole weight 
of his consular responsibility. 

177 M 



THE CONSUL 

" Yet, in spite of this military precedence, it did 
not seem in the least inconsistent with the decidedly 
peaceful character of the town, and this again sug- 
gested its utter unreality ; wandering cows sometimes 
got mixed up with squadrons of cavalry, and didn't 
seem to mind it ; sheep passed singly between files of 
infantry, or preceded them in a flock when on the 
march ; indeed, nothing could be more delightful and 
innocent than to see a regiment of infantry in heavy 
marching order, laden with every conceivable thing 
they could want for a week, returning after a cheerful 
search for an invisible enemy in the suburbs, to 
bivouac peacefully among the cabbages in the market- 
place. Nobody was ever imposed upon for a moment 
by their tremendous energy and severe display ; drums 
might beat, trumpets blow, dragoons charge furiously 
all over the Exercier-Platz ; or suddenly flash their 
naked swords in the streets to the guttural command 
of an officer — nobody seemed to mind it. People 
glanced up to recognise Rudolph or Max ' doing their 
service,' nodded, and went about their business. And 
although the officers always wore their side-arms, 
and at the most peaceful of social dinners only relin- 
quished their swords in the hall, apparently that they 
might be able to buckle them on again and rush out 
to do battle for the Fatherland between the courses, 
the other guests only looked upon these weapons in 
the light of sticks and umbrellas, and possessed their 
souls in peace. And when, added to this singular 

incongruity, many of these warriors were spectacled, 

178 



THE CONSUL 

studious men, and, despite their lethal weapons, wore 
a slightly professional air, and were — to a man — 
deeply sentimental and singularly simple, their atti- 
tude in this eternal Kriegspiel seemed to the Consul 
more puzzling than ever. 

"As he entered his consulate he was confronted 
with another aspect of Schlachtstadt quite as wonder- 
ful, yet already familiar to him. For in spite of these 
'alarums without,' which, however, never seem to 
penetrate beyond the town itself, Schlachtstadt and 
its suburbs were known all over the world for the 
manufactures of certain beautiful textile fabrics, and 
many of the rank and file of these warriors had built 
up the fame and prosperity of the district over their 
peaceful looms in wayside cottages. There were great 
depots and counting-houses, larger than even the 
cavalry barracks, where no other uniform but that of 
the postman was known. Hence it was that the 
Consul's chief duty was to uphold the flag of his own 
country by the examination and certification of divers 
invoices sent to his office by the manufacturers. But, 
oddly enough, these business messengers were chiefly 
women — not clerks, but ordinary household servants, 
and, on busy days, the consulate might have been 
mistaken for a female registry office, so filled and 
possessed it was by waiting Madchen. Here it was 
that Gretchen, Lieschen, and Clarchen, in the cleanest 
^ of blue gowns, and stoutly but smartly shod, brought 
their invoices in a piece of clean paper, or folded in 

a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more 

179 



THE CONSUL 

or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the 
Consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very 
young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the 
sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to 
go, but generally there was a grave, serious business 
instinct and sense of responsibility in these girls of 
ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their 
sisters of France, were unknown to the English or 
American woman of any class." 

The humour of his military picture will be appre- 
ciated by all who know Germany ; its pendant is 
no doubt lifelike, but it seems rather sad to think 
of the author of " The Luck of Roaring Camp " and 
" The Heathen Chinee " doomed to examine and sign 
invoices ! 

But the following letter will show that he was very 
soon able to put things in order at Crefeld, and take 
his much desired vacation. i 

« Mrs. Bret Harte, Sea Cliff Hotel, j 

Sea Cliff, Long Island. 

" ' The Molt,' Salcombe, Kingsbridge, 
"Devonshire, Aikj. 19, 1878. 

" My dear Anna, — I have just received yours 

of August 2nd, forwarded to me from Crefeld. I can 

understand your alarm at not receiving a letter 

from me for two weeks, because after writing you 

on the 1 8th July I did not write again until I had 

arrived at Crefeld, nearly two weeks. I think I 

180 



THE CONSUL 

have received all your letters ; I think you have 
all mine. 

" I wrote you from London a day or two ago. 
Since then I came down here to visit Froude (the 
historian), who has treated me with very particular 
kindness. After I left London, a month ago, I got 
a line from Houghton at Crefeld inviting me to 
dinner the next day ; but since then I have not 
heard from him. I sent my card to Froude when 
I first arrived. He quickly responded with an invi- 
tation, but I could not then leave Crefeld ; then he 
sent a second letter, which I enclose, and so I came 
down here. This damp English climate is depres- 
sing to me, and of course this place on the south- 
westerly coast of England is almost like being again 
at sea ; but I don't regret coming here. 

" It is, without exception, one of the most 'perfect 

country houses I ever beheld. Lnagine, if you can, 

something between ' Locksley Hall ' and the ' High 

Hall Garden,' where Maud used to walk, and you 

have some idea of this graceful English home. I 

look from my windows down upon exquisite lawns 

and terraces all sloping towards the sea wall and 

then down upon the blue sea below. I walk out 

in the long high garden, past walls hanging with 

netted peaches and apricots, past terraces looking 

over the ruins of an old feudal castle, and I can 

scarcely believe I am not reading an English novel 

or that I am not myself a wandering ghost. To 

heighten the absurdity when I return to my room 

i8i 



THE CONSUL 

I am confronted by the inscription on the door, ' Lord 
Devon ' (for this is the property of the Earl of Devon, 
and I occupy his favourite room), and I seem to have 
died and to be resting under a gilded mausoleum 
that lies even more than the average tombstone 
does. Froude is a connection of the Earl's, and has 
hired the house for the summer. 

" He is a widower, with two daughters and a 
son. The eldest girl is not unlike a highly educated 
Boston girl, and the conversation sometimes reminds 
me of Boston. The youngest daughter, only ten 
years old, told her sister in reference to some con- 
versation Froude and I had that ' she feared ' (this 
child) ' that Mr. Bret Harte was inclined to be 
sceptical " / Doesn't this exceed any English story 
of the precocity of American children ? The boy, 
scarcely fourteen, acts like a boy of eight (an 
American boy of eight) and talks like a man of 
thirty, as far as pure English and facility of expres- 
sion goes. His manners are perfect, yet he is per- 
fectly simple and boylike. The culture and breed- 
ing of some English children is really marvellous. 
But somehow — and here comes one of my ' buts ' — 
there's always a suggestion of some repression, some 
discipline that I don't like. Everybody is carefully 
trained to their station, and seldom bursts out beyond 
it. The respect always shown towards me is some- 
thing fine — and depressing. I can easily feel how 
this deference to superiors is ingrained in all. 

" But Froude — dear old noble fellow — is splendid. 



182 



I 



THE CONSUL 

I love him more than I ever did in America. He 
is great, broad, manly — democratic in the best sense 
of the word, scorning all sycophancy and meanness, 
accepting all that is around him, yet more proud 
of his literary profession than of his kinship with 
these people whom he quietly controls. There are 
only a few literary men like him here, but they are 
kings. I could not have had a better introduction 
to them than through Froude, who knows them all, 
who is Tennyson's best friend, and who is anxious 
to make my entree among them a success, I had 
forgotten that Canon Kingsley, whom you liked so 
much, is Froude's brother-in-law, until Froude re- 
minded me of it. So it is like being among friends 
here. 

" So far I've avoided seeing any company here ; 
but Froude and I walk and walk, and talk and 
talk. They let me do as I want, and I have not 
been well enough yet to do aught but lounge. The 
doctor is coming to see me to-day, and if I am no 
better I shall return in a day or two to London 
and then to Crefeld. 

" I'll write you from London. God bless you 
all. — Your affectionate Frank." 

First and foremost among the men whom Bret 

I Harte desired to see when he came to England was 

i J. A. Froude. For his works he had the highest 

admiration, with his views he entertained the deepest 

sympathy, and his aims appealed to him in no ordi- 

183 



THE CONSUL 

nary degree. This memorable visit to Devonshire 
came just at the right time ; it took Bret Harte 
away from the tedium of his Crefeld invoice duties 
and the unsuitabihty of his military surroundings. 
Henceforth a friendship strong and great grew be- 
tween the two men, and lasted as long as life permits 
such precious things to exist. I have never heard 
one man speak with more affection and appreciation 
of another than Bret Harte when he spoke of J. A. 
Froude. It was, too, a topic to which he always 
loved to return. 

He lingered for awhile in England, and the ac- 
companying two letters to his wife show that while 
he was making new and influential friends he was 
always thinking of his American home. 

'• Mrs. Bret Harte, Sea Cliflf Hotel, 
Sea Cliff, Long Island. 

" London, August 27, 1878. 

" My dear Nan, — I hope Mr. Osgood will find 

time to see you, but if he does not I send by him 

to the boys some little things of no particular value, 

other than to have them know that papa had put 

these things aside for his boys. The large medal is 

really fine, and was presented to me by one of the 

directors of the Company. It is of bronze, and is 

valuable as having a perfect likeness of the Emperor 

and Empress. The sleeve buttons are something new 

(I bought them in the Palais Royal) — being an exact 

184 



THE CONSUL 

photograph of a French newspaper and a German 
bank-note. 

" I dare not go with Osgood to Liverpool for fear 
I shall get on the steamer with him and return. So 
I try to forget that I have no home to go to, and 
must stay here, day by day. — God bless you all. 

Frank." 

There is something very pathetic in the picture of 
the man whose thoughts turned to the west, but whose 
duties pointed to the east. But, as we shall presently 
see, he was busy in London making hopeful arrange- 
ments for the future. The Ethel and Jessamy referred 
to in the next letter were his daughters. 

" Mrs. Bret Harte, 45 Fifth Avenue, 
New York City, 

" London, November 6, 1878. 

" My dear Nan, — I enclose a picture for Ethel 
and have written a note to her, which of course you 
will read and translate. The picture is a photo of 
His Grace the Duke of St. Albans' second son — the 
Marquis of something or other, I've forgotten the title. 
But the Duchess gave it to me for Ethel, and wrote 
his name on the back. 

" It's a pretty picture of a little fellow ' born to 
the purple,' but too young yet to be spoiled by the 
knowledge of it. 

" I am now on my way to Crefeld. I shall write 
you as soon as I arrive. 

185 



THE CONSUL 

" I have just remembered something which of 
course you have already seen. And so I write to the 
Duchess to-day that I must have another picture for 
Jessamy. — God bless you all. Frank." 

The next letter (written from Crefeld) humorously 
shows Bret Harte's opinion of himself as a musical 
critic. He really loved music, but he had the sincerest 
contempt for those amateurs who, knowing as little 
of the art as himself (he was avowedly no musician), 
would go into affected raptures over works that they 
could not possibly understand. In writing to his 
wife he knew that he was expressing his views and 
tastes to a well-skilled connoisseur. 

" Mrs. Bret Harte, care of Mrs. Knanflft, 
45 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

" Crefeld, JaniMry 22, 1879. 

" My dear Anna, — Mrs. Bayard Taylor has sent 

me a book of her late husband's, and a very kind 

note, and it occurs to me to enclose to you to-day the 

letter I received from her in answer to one I wrote 

her after hearing of her husband's death. You 

remember that I did not feel very kindly towards 

him, nor had he troubled himself much about me 

when I came here alone and friendless, but his death 

choked back my resentment, and what I wrote to 

her and afterwards in the TagehlaU, I felt very 

honestly. 

" I have been several times to the opera at Dussel- 

186 



THE CONSUL 

dorf, and I have been hesitating whether I should 
slowly prepare you for a great shock or tell you at 
once that musical Germany is a humbug. It had 
struck me during the last two months that I had 
really heard nothing good in the way of music or even 
as good as I have heard in America, and it was only a 
week ago that hearing a piano played in an adjoining 
house, and played badly at that, I was suddenly 
struck with the fact that it was really the first piano 
that I had heard in Germany. I have heard orches- 
tras at concerts and military bands ; but no better 
than in America. My first operatic experience was 
Tannhduser. I can see your superior smile, Anna, at 
this ; and I know how you will take my criticism of 
Wagner, so I don't mind saying plainly, that it was 
the most diabolically hideous and stupidly monotonous 
performance I ever heard. I shall say nothing about 
the orchestral harmonies, for there wasn't anything 
going on of that kind, unless you call something that 
seemed like a boiler factory at work in the next 
street, and the wind whistling through the rigging 
of a channel steamer, harmony. But I 7nust say one 
thing ! In the third act, I think, Tannhauser and 
two other minstrels sing before the King and Court 
to the accompaniment of their harps — and the boiler 
factory. Each minstrel sang or rather declaimed 
something like the multiplication table for about 
twenty minutes. Tannhiiuser, when his turn came, 
declaimed longer, and more lugubriously, and pon- 
derously and monotonously than the others, and went 

187 



THE CONSUL 

into ' nine times nine are eighty-one ' and ' ten times 
ten are twenty,' when suddenly when he had finished 
they all drew their swords and rushed at him. I 
turned to General Yon Ranch and said to him that I 
didn't wonder at it. ' Ah,' said he, ' you know the 
story then ? ' ' No, not exactly,' I replied. ' Ja 
wohl,' said Yon Ranch, ' the story is that these 
minstrels are all singing in praise of Love, but they 
are furious at Tannhiiuser who loves Hilda, the 
German Yenus, for singing in the praise of Love so 
ivildly, so ivarmly, so passionately ! ' Then I con- 
cluded that I really did not understand Wagner. 

" But what I wanted to say was that even my 
poor uneducated ear detected bad instrumentation 
and worse singing in the choruses. I confided this 
much to a friend, and he said very frankly that I 
was probably right, that the best musicians and 
choruses went to America ! 

" Then I was awfully disappointed in ' Faust,' or, 
as it is known here in the playbills, ' Marguerite.' 
You know how I love that delicious idyl of Gounod's, 
and I was in my seat that night long before the 
curtain went up. Before the first act was over I 
felt like leaving, and yet I was glad I stayed. For 
although the chorus of villagers was frightful, and 
Faust and Mephistopheles spouted and declaimed 
blank verse at each other — whole pages of Goethe, 
yet the acting was good. The music was a little 
better in the next act, and the acting was superb. 
I have never seen such a Marguerite ! From the 



THE CONSUL 

time she first meets Faust with that pert rebuke 
until the final scenes she was perfect. The prayer 
in the church — the church interior represented with 
kneeling figures and service going on — such as they 
dare not represent in England — was most wonderful. 
I can see her yet, passing from one to another of 
the kneeling groups as the women draw away from 
her, and as she knelt in a blind groping way with 
her fingers mechanically turning the leaves of her 
prayer-book, and the voice of Mephistopheles mingling 
with the music, until, with one wild shriek she threw 
the book away. Then it was that I jumped up in 
my seat and applauded. But think of my coming 
to Germany to hear opera badly sung, and magni- 
ficently acted ! 

" I saw Der Freischiitz after this, but it was not 
so well acted, and awfully sung. Yet the scenery was 
wonderfully good and the costumes historically per- 
fect. The audiences from Cologne to Dusseldorf are 
all the same, stiff, formal, plainly dressed, all except 
the officers. The opera audience at Cologne look 
like an American prayer-meeting. 

" I have written Frankie and Wodie. Unless my 
lecture tour is postponed, I shall not write you again 
until I get to London. And then I shall be so busy 
I can only give you the news of success. — God bless 
you all. Frank." 

" Wodie" was his eldest son. He bore his mother's 

family name, Griswold. 

189 



THE CONSUL 

The lecture tour to which he refers had been 
arranged while he was in London, and that he had 
been working hard in other ways is proved by the 
introduction to a volume of his stories and verses 
now published in England by Messrs. Chatto and 
Windus. It ran: — "In offering this collection of 
sketches to the English public, the author is con- 
scious of attaching an importance to them that may ' 
not be shared by the general reader, but which he, 
as an American writer on English soil, cannot fail 
to feel very sensibly. The collection is made by 
himself, the letterpress revised, by his own hand, 
and he feels for the first time that these fugitive 
children of his brain are no longer friendless in a 
strange land, entrusted to the care of a foster-mother, 
however discreet, but are his own creations, for 
whose presentation to the public . in this fashion he 
is alone responsible. Three or four having been 
born upon English soil may claim the rights of 
citizenship, but the others he must leave to prove 
their identity with English literature on their own 
merits." I 

Almost simultaneously with this publication came 
his first appearance in England as a lecturer. Of 
his reception by public and critics he had no cause 
to complain. Whether the Crystal Palace was 
or was not a suitable place for his experiment is 
not for me to say, but of its result the always down- 
right Aihenwum said : — j 

" There come down upon us periodically, pre- 

190 



THE CONSUL 

dieted by ' cablegrams ' from the other side of the 
Atlantic, depressing storms. By way of recompense 
there comes also thence from time to time an ex- 
hilarating humourist. Such a visitor is now among 
us. But it is not only his fund of humour, genuine, 
original and abundant as that is, which in the case 
of Mr. Bret Harte justly claims admiration. All 
who heard the lecture which he delivered at the 
Crystal Palace on ' The Argonauts of '49,' the 
Californian Crusaders, must have learnt then, if his 
writings had not previously made them aware of 
the fact, that he is a true artist, possessing rare 
mastery over language, skilled to express ideas, 
pathetic or grotesque. With the lecture itself we 
will not at present deal, beyond stating that it 
served to bring more clearly before the eyes of 
those who were present that far Western region 
about which Mr, Bret Harte has written so much 
that is familiar to every reader, and especially to 
place in clear relief the striking contrast between 
the idyllic calm of old California and the rush and 
whirl of its modern life. 

"It is to be hoped that his consular duties at 
Crefeld will not prove so engrossing as to prevent 
him from continuing to write, and also from enabling 
English audiences to become personally acquainted 
with a speaker and writer who is one of the best 
representatives of American humour — that humour 
so equally delightful in its exaggerations, as when 

the floor is represented as being ' strewed like the 

191 



THE CONSUL 

leaves on the strand ' with the cards which ' that 
heathen Chinee ' had concealed in his sleeves, and 
in its euphemistic understatements, as when the 
fatal effect of the ' chunk of old red sandstone ' on 
Abner Dean of Angel's is merely hinted at in the 
information that ' the subsequent proceedings in- 
terested him no more.' 

" Mr. Harte's lecture on California, its early in- 
habitants and its later colonizers, will doubtless 
be repeated in localities more easy of access than 
Sydenham, and in that case many an audience will 
be able to enjoy the charm which attends on choice 
language excellently spoken, describing the pictur- 
esqueness of quite unfamiliar scenes, telling of strange 
and unromantic forms of life, and appealing in swift 
succession to the hearer's poetic imagination and to 
his sense of humour. How wide is now the audience 
to which his literary work appeals may be judged 
by the fact that there now lies before us a Servian 
translation of six of his tales, printed last year at 
Temesvar, under the title of Shest Kaliforniishikh 
Pricha Br eta Kharta, and preceded by an enthusi- 
astic preface in German by the translator, Ivan B. 
Popovitch." 

Beaching New York this notice was received 
with great satisfaction by Bret Harte's friends and 
countrymen, and under the headline, 

Another American Success in England, 
was freely circulated in the newspapers throughout 

the States. 

192 



THE CONSUL 

The lecture delighted every one who heard it. 
The handsome face and dignified presence of the 
popular author at once arrested attention, and he 
held his audiences enthralled as in his clear, striking, 
and beautifully modulated voice he told us the story 
of the Argonauts of '49, of an episode of American 
life as quaint and typical as that of the Greek ad- 
venturers whose name gave the idea he had borrowed 
for his title — a kind of crusade without a cross, an 
exodus without a prophet. "It is not," he said, 
"a pretty story. I do not know that it is even 
instructive. It is of a life of which perhaps the best 
that can be said is that it exists no longer." 

Be that as it may, he made it a very absorbing 
story, and he struck the right keynote by giving in 
the masterly fashion of one who is familiar with his 
subject, an idea of the country which the Argonauts 
recreated, and the civilisation they displaced. For 
more than three hundred years California was of all 
Christian countries the least known. The glow and 
glamour of Spanish tradition and discovery were 
about it. There was an old English map in which 
it was set down as an island! There was the Rio 
de los Keyes — a kind of gorgeous Mississippi, lead- 
ing directly to the heart of the continent which De 
Fonte claimed to have discovered. There was the 
Anian passage, a prophetic forecast of the Pacific 
Railroad, through which Moldonado declared that he 
had sailed to the North Atlantic. Another Spanish 
discoverer brought his " mendacious personality " 

193 N 



THE CONSUL 

directly from the Pacific by way of Columbia Eiver to 
Lake Ontario on which (Bret Harte was rejoiced to 
say) he found a Yankee vessel from Boston, whose 
captain informed him that he had come up from the 
Atlantic only a few days before. Along the line of 
iron-bound coast the old freebooters chased the timid 
Philippine galleons, and in its largest bay, beside the 
present gateway of the East, Sir Francis Drake lay 
for two weeks and scraped the barnacles from his 
adventurous keels. It was only within quite recent 
years that a company of gold diggers, turning up the 
ocean sands, had come across some large cakes of wax 
imbedded in the broken and fire- scarred ribs of a 
wreck of ancient date. The Californian heart was 
at once fired at the discovery, and in a few weeks 
a hundred men or more were digging, burrowing, 
and scraping for the lost treasure of the Philippine 
galleon. At last they found a few cutlasses with the 
Queen's broad-arrow on their blades ! The enter- 
prising, gallant, and slightly piratical Sir Francis 
Drake had been there before them. 

Yet they were peaceful pastoral days for Cali- 
fornia. Through the great Central Valley the Sacra- 
mento poured an unstained current into a majestic 
bay, ruffled by no keels and fretted by no wharves. 
The Angelus bell rung at San Bernardino, and taken 
up by every Mission tower along the darkening coast, 
rang the good people to prayer and sleep before nine 
o'clock every night. Leagues of wild oats, pro- 
genitors of those great wheat fields that now drug 

194 



THE CONSUL 

the markets, hung their idle heads on the hillsides — 
vast herds of untamed cattle, whose hides and horns 
made the scant commerce of those days, wandered 
over the illimitable plains, knowing no human figure 
but that of the yearly riding vaquero on his un- 
broken mustang, which they regarded as one. 

Around the white walls of the Mission build- 
ings were clustered the huts of the Indian neo- 
phytes who dressed neatly but not expensively in 
mud. Presidios^ garrisoned by a dozen raw militia- 
men kept the secular order, and in the scattered 
pueblos ^ rustic alcades ^ dispensed, like Sancho Panza, 
proverbial wisdom and practical equity to the bucolic 
litigant. The proprietors of the old ranchos^ ruled 
in a patriarchal style, and lived to a patriarchal age. 
On a soil half-tropical in its character, in a climate 
wholly original in its practical conditions, a soft- 
handed Latin race slept and smoked the half-year's 
sunshine away, and believed they had discovered a 
new Spain. They awoke from their dream only to 
find themselves strangers on their own soil — foreigners 
in their own country — ignorant even of the treasure 
they had been sent to guard. 

" Do Americans ever think," he asked, " that they 
owe their rights to California to the Catholic Church 
and the Mormon brotherhood ? Yet Father Junipero 
Serra, ringing his bell in the heathen-wilderness of 
Upper California, and Brigham Young, leading his 

^ Forts. 2 Villages or townships. 

2 Justices of the Peace. * Farms. 



THE CONSUL 

half- famished legions to Salt Lake, were the two great 
pioneers of the Argonauts of 49. All that western 
emigration that prior to the gold discovery pene- 
trated the Oregon and Californian valleys and half 
Americanised the coast, would have perished by the 
way but for the providentially created oasis of Salt 
Lake City. The halting trains of alkali-poisoned 
oxen, the footsore and despairing teamsters gathered 
rest and succour from the Mormon settlement. The 
British frigate that sailed into the port of Monterey 
a day too late, saw the American flag that had 
crossed the continent flying from the cross of the 
Cathedral ! A day sooner and an Englishman might 
have been telling you this story. 

" Were our friends the Argonauts at all afiected 
by these coincidences ? I think not. They had that 
lordly contempt for a southern soft-tongued race 
which belonged to their Anglo-Saxon lineage. They 
were given to no superstitious romance, exalted by no 
special mission, inflamed by no high ambition, and 
sceptical of even the existence of the golden fleece 
until they saw it. Equal to their fate they accepted 
with a kind of heathen philosophy whatever it might 
bring. ' If there isn't any gold, what are you going 
to do with those sluice boxes ? ' said a newly arrived 
emigrant to a friend. ' They will make first-class 
cofiins,' said his companion, with the simple direct- 
ness of a man who has calculated his chances. If 
they did not burn their vessels behind them like 

Pizarro, they at least left the good ship Argo dis- 

196 



THE CONSUL 

mantled and rotting at the Colchian wharf. Sailors 
were shipped only for the outward voyage. Nobody 
expected to return, even those who anticipated failure. 
Fertile in expedient, they twisted their very failures 
into a certain sort of success. Until recently, there 
stood in San Francisco a house of the early days 
--^ whose foundations were built entirely of plug tobacco 
in boxes. Their consignee had found a glut in the 
tobacco market, but lumber for foundations was at a 
tremendous premium ! " 

I must now set the lecture on one side and 
proceed Avith my narrative, but it contained one 
beautiful and thoughtful little picture that I would 
fain reproduce. 

" Before taking leave of the Spanish-American," 
said Bret Harte, " let me recall a single figure. It 
is that of the earliest pioneer known to Californian 
history. He comes to us toiling over a Southern 
plain, an old man, weak, emaciated, friendless and 
alone. He has left his muleteers and acolytes a 
league behind him, and has wandered on without 
scrip or wallet, bearing only a crucifix and bell. 

" It is a characteristic plain — one that your tourists 
do not penetrate — scorched yet bleak, windswept, 
blasted, baked to its very foundations, and cracked 
into gaping chasms. As the pitiless sun goes down, 
the old man staggers forward and falls utterly ex- 
hausted. He lies there all night. Towards morning 
he is found by some Indians — a feeble simple race — 

who in uncouth kindness offer him food and drink. 

197 



f 



THE CONSUL 

But before he accepts either he rises to his knees, and 
there says matins and baptizes them in the Cathohc 
faith. And then it occurs to him to ask them where \ 
he is, and he finds that he has penetrated into the X- 
unknown land. It was Padre Junipero Serra, a^ ^y 
the sun arose that morning on Christian CaHfornia. " 
Weighed by the usual estimate of success his mission 
was a failure. The heathen stole his provisions and 
5 , massacred his acolytes. It is said that the good fathers 
*^ - themselves sometimes confounded baptism and^^bondage 
and laid the foundation of peonage,^ but in the blood- 
stained and tear-blotted chronicle of the early California 
there is not a more heroic figure than this travel-worn, 
self-centered, self-denying Franciscan friar." 

For the rest, the lecture consisted mainly of a 
brilliant series of anecdotes, mostly humorous, many 
pathetic, and all delightful, of the type so well known 
to the readers of his works. Quickly and in an 
appreciative way that proved infectious to his 
audiences, he ran through his gamut of miners, 
gamblers, San Franciscans, Spanish Dons, fascinating 
Senoras and Senoritas, pretty American girls, and 
bewildering Chinamen. 

His infinitely diverting dealing with the latter 
ingenious folk brought his tale to an end, and in a 
beautiful peroration, which will never be forgotten 
by those who were fortunate enough to listen to the 
stirring eloquence with which it was delivered, he 
said : — 

" And with this receding figure bringing up the 

' Peonage. Peon sigiiities a servant, a labourer, a working man. 

198 



THE CONSUL 

rear of the procession I close my review of the 
Argonauts of '49. In the rank and file there may 
be many perhaps personally known to some of the 
audience. There may be gaps which the memories 
of others may supply. There are homes all over the 
world whose vacant places can never be filled. There 
are graves all over California on whose nameless ^^y-v^^ 
mounds no one shall weep. I have told you that it 
is not a pretty story. I should like to end it with 
a flourish of trumpets, but the band has gone on 
before, and the dust of the highway is beginning to 
hide them from my view. They are marching to the 
city by the sea, the great loadstone hill that Sinbad 
saw, which they call Lone Mountain. There waiting 
at its base lies the Argo, and when the last Argonaut 
shall have passed in she will spread her white wings, 
and slip unnoticed through the Golden Gate that 
opens in the distance." 

In face of the splendid impression made by Bret 
Harte at the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere, it is 
rather sad to think he was somewhat disappointed 
with the result of his first lecturing tour in England, 
but on his return to Crefeld he wrote disparagingly, 
if not despondently, of his venture : — 

" Mrs. Bret Haute, care of Mrs. Knanfft, 
45 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

"Crefeld, February 21, 1879. 

" My dear Nan, — I have received two letters 

from you in the past two days, and one from Frankie 

and Wodie. Tell Wode I shall send his interesting 

199 



THE CONSUL 

account of the ' 50 schooner ' to Mrs. Webb of 
Montreal, who has taken a great interest in him and 
his vessel. Tell Frankie I shall write a line or two 
to Boucicault for tickets for himself and Wodie — if it 
be not too late. 

" You see I am back again at my post. The tour 

-s»was a miserable failure financially — just as I feared. 
It has been now postponed for a month or six weeks — 
provided Mr. Carte, my agent, can send me a list of 
engagements (secured sums) sufficient to make it pay. 
I was in England three weeks and lectured five times, 
and cleared only about two hundred dollars above my 
expenses. I was bound in honour to perform them, 
or I should have returned when I found how I was 
deceived. Only a fear of repeating the ' Redpath ' 
experience kept me from doing it. 

^ " Of course I was, as far as the public and the 
press were concerned, very handsomely received. I 
had to decline many invitations, and it is proposed 
now, if I return, that I shall be offered a public dinner. 
But my return to England rests entirely on my being 
able to make the lecture tour profitable. — God bless 
you all. Frank." 

Yes, it was in England as in America. Even in 
the little world behind the scenes of the lecturer's 
desk and the inevitable and forbidding-looking water- 
bottle and tumbler, there are sometimes woes, worries, 
and disappointments. There may be a brave display;-^ 

of glitter, but it is not all gold. But Bret Harte was 

200 



THE CONSUL 

premature in talking of " miserable failure." He 
should have remembered that though his works had 
preceded him to England and rejoiced the hearts of 
all who had read them, he and his oratory had yet to 
be known. Moreover, there is something in the word 
" lecture " that scares certain people away from what 
(the precise name for it is lacking) is really a very 
pleasant form of entertainment — and these would 
have been the very people who should have filled 
Bret Harte's benches. But to thousands "lecture" 
spells "boredom," and such folk waited to be told of 
the good thing that was in store for them. As a 
matter of fact these earlier lectures were artistically 
successful, and, though financially disappointing, 
money had been gained rather than lost, and many 
a luckless aspirant to lecture-hall honours would 
envy the man who on his initial appearances could 
boast such a result. As will soon be seen they paved 
the way for other things. 

" Mrs. Bret Harte, care of Mrs. KnanflFt, 
45 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

"Crefeld, March 15, 1879. 
" My dear Nan, — I have just received yours of 
the 27th February. I was inexpressibly shocked to 
hear of poor Brantz Mayer's death. Since I have 
been here I have lived so much in the atmosphere of 
old recollections that I suppose it was not strange 
that for the last two or three days I have been 

thinking of him, and of my visit to Baltimore just 

201 



THE CONSUL 

a year ago. His death, which I saw in the tele- 
graphic news, came home to me at once. 

" I was very much worried about Frankie's illness ; 
and in fact I am dreading the horrible spring weather 
of New York and its effect upon you and the children. 
The only consolation I can give you is that it is as 
inclement and sickly here. This district is full of 
diphtheria and scarlet fever, and my Vice-Consul's 
children have been very sick with both. I also have 
been suffering from a succession of colds — almost a 
repetition of my last year's experience at Sea Cliff — 
became quite alarmed last week at the state of my 
throat, and feared I had ' caught something,' for my 
office is in the V.-C.'s house. But the 3l 
was only a kind of ' epidemic sympathy.! 

" Worse than that, I've been temptj^ jr 

of 85 guineas (nearly 450 dollars) to leduure m about 
ten days at a great English provincial city and 
perhaps elsewhere, and here I am down sick before 
the time comes. I hope to pull through it some way, 
however, and get the money. 

" I am very seriously thinking of asking the 

Department to change my location, Germany is no 

place for me — I feel it more and more every day. 

So that if I do not hold out any hopes to you, it is 

because I do not know if I will stay here. There are 

so many places better for my health, . for my literary 

plans, for my comfort, and for my purse than this. 

I shall write quietly to one or two of r»'.^ Washington 

friends to see if it can be managed.^ I shall have 

202 



THE CONSUL 

made a good head here ; by good luck I fear more 
than by management. The consular business will 
exceed this year any previous year, and I can hand 
over to the Government quite a handsome sum. 

" I sat down to write you a long letter, but my 
cold leaves me so weak to-day I can hardly write, 
and I must keep up my strength to sign and record 
invoices. — God bless you all. Frank." 

This second lecturing tour was in every way 
successful. The late Mr. D'Oyley Carte had arranged 
things admirably for him ; he visited some of the 
largest English cities and townships, the terms given 
iral, and everywhere he was received 
sm. It was during this tour that he 
tii^ a guest in my home, and he seemed 

to be in the )est of health and spirits. His power 
and humour as a lecturer had been made known, 
and the people flocked to see him. 

But he was soon back in Crefeld and at his weary 

task of signing and recording invoices. During these 

visits to England he made many new friends and 

accepted many invitations and engagements — more, 

perhaps, considering his naturally shy nature, than 

were advisable. It is, however, very difficult when 

face to face with a proposal that is not only kindly 

but in every respect highly complimentary, to say 

" no." It was probably with this feeling in his 

mind that he as induced to say " yes " when it was 

suggested that he should respond to the toast of 

203 



THE CONSUL 

Literature at the Royal Academy Banquet of 1879. 
But when he was once more in Crefeld the thought 
of that half promise tortured him, and the horror 
of having to make an after-dinner speech worried 
his days and disturbed his nights. I mention this 
incident because it proves how he was really anxious 
to avoid anything that savoured of self-advertisement, 
and longed to be only known through his published 
works. But he had got into a dilemma, and it was 
difEcult to get out of it. He could not plead that 
he was a bad speaker, because he had just proved 
himself to be a very admirable one ; it was difEcult 
for him to say that he could not possibly neglect his 
consular duties at that precise date because he had 
already said he should be able to attend the dinner. 
It never seemed to occur to him that any other 
man in his position would have been delighted at 
the distinction offered him. And so when the invi- 
tation took definite shape he hesitated, let things 
drift, and caused a little turmoil in London. 

On April 28, Mr. G. H. Bough ton, the celebrated 
artist, wrote to a mutual friend : — 

"April 28, 1879. 

" My dear Trubner, — I saw Sir Frederick 

Leighton yesterday at the Boyal Academy, and he 

seemed to be in a vexed dilemma on account of not 

hearing from Bret Harte whether he would really 

reply to the toast of ' Literature.' Of course until 

he gets his answer he cannot ask any one else. He 

204 



THE CONSUL 

so admires Bret Harte — and we all do for that matter 
— that he wants him if possible. It will be a very 
grand occasion. The Prince of Wales and no end 
of bigwigs will be there, and I feel it a tremendous 
honour to Our Side that Harte is looked up to as 
the best man to reply. Do ' prod ' him up to it ; 
join my humble prayer to yours ; send him this 
even : ' I shall never, Never, Never ! ! ! forgive you, 
Bret Harte, if you don't reply at once like a good 
fellow and say you will speak ! ' — Ever yours sincerely, 

G. H. BOUGHTON." 

This note was sent on to the delinquent, and, 
presumably with the " signing and recording in- 
voices " on his mind, he endorsed it, " George H. 
Boughton, the American Artist,^ and one of the 
greatest in England." 

But though he thus showed his appreciation (that 
he really valued the letter is proved by the fact 
that he preserved it, and that it is now before me) 
and treated it from this business, consular-like point 
of view, it is to be feared he did not answer it ! 

In a day or two there came to the American 
Consul at Crefeld the following appealing tele- 
gram : — 

" In despair. Cannot do without you. Please 

^ Although Mr. Boughton in alluding to " Our Side " seems to confirm 
Bret Harte's claim to him as an American artist, he really belongs to 
England, for he was born in Norwich. When a baby he was taken to 
America and educated in Bret Harte's native city, Albany. Thus he 
gladly claimed him as a countrymau. 

205 



THE CONSUL 

telegraph at once if quite impossible. Leighton, 
Royal Academy, London." 

There was no getting out of this, for the " reply " 
was paid ; but the diffident Consul saw in it a loop- 
hole for his escape. Becoming supremely conscien- 
tious concerning the duties he owed to the " invoices," 
he telegraphed back that the extreme pressure of 
official engagements would make his presence and 
speech an impossibility. 

But the affair was not allowed to rest there. His 
friend Froude wrote : — 

" 5 Onslow Gardens, S.W., May i, 1879. 
"My dear H arte,— Your non-appearance at the 
Academy will be a great disappointment. We shall, 
however, count the more surely on your presence 
at the Literary Fund Dinner on the 7th. I was to 
have spoken there for Literature, but I have made 
over the office to you, and have assured the Com- 
mittee that they may rely upon you. I meant to 
have asked a party to meet you here on the fifth 
or sixth, but the uncertainty and the unwillingness 
to hold you up to reprobation as a person not to 
be depended on forbid me to run the risk. I hope 
you have written to Leighton as well as telegraphed 
to him ? The President of the Royal Academy is a 
sacred person, with the state and honours of a sove- 
reign on these occasions. Alas that you should miss 

hearing the return thanks for the ! You 

could have made a sketch out of it as good as 

206 



THE CONSUL 

' Lothaw.' ^ You would also have heard ' Lothaw ' 
himself. I could be as eloquent on what you are 
losing as Reineke Fuchs on the wonders of the trea- 
sure that was forthcoming to Nobel the King. Be 
sure to write to Leighton, as I am bail for your 
' good behaviour. — Yours most truly, 

J. A. Froude." 

" You left your cigar-case here, which I keep 
untouched for you." 

Thus admonished the now remorseful Consul did 
I tardily write to Sir Frederick Leighton, and had 
for reply : — 

^ " Dear Mr. Bret Harte, — It was most kind 
I of you to write to me after your telegram. I fully 
i understand the impossibility of your leaving your 
post, and sincerely regret my loss. — Yours very truly, 
J Frederick Leighton." 

All these things must have touched the consular 

heart, for, subsequently, Bret Harte did speak for 

Literature at the Boyal Academy Dinner, and 

I acquitted himself right worthily. But he put off 

I the evil day as long as he could. Thus it was with 

j him throughout his life, and his trouble was neither 

' " Lothaw ; or, The Adventures of a Youug Gentleman in Search of 
a Religion," by Mr. Benjamins, was, it will be remembered, the title under 
which Bret Harte in his Condensed Novels delightfully burlesqued the 

\ style of Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield). 

' 207 



THE CONSUL 

nervousness nor lack of sociability, but an innate 
and very pleasant modesty which characterised him 
wherever he went, and among all sorts and con- 
ditions of people. " Hundreds of men," I have heard 
him say, " like to speak in public and to be reported 
in the papers. / dont like it. Why then can't 
people let them have their fill of enjoyment and 
leave me alone ? " 

But the Crefeld invoices were not to hold him 
long in thrall. On his behalf his American friends 
had loyally interested themselves, and his consular 
work was soon to be transferred to the far more 
homelike atmosphere of Glasgow. 

Before taking leave of his sojourn in Germany, 
I must, pace those critics who persist in saying he 
could only write on topics Californian, again refer 
to the fact that wherever he might be he made 
excellent use of his surroundings. Let those who 
still doubt turn to his " Views from a German 
Spion," wherein he focussed the maimers and cus- 
toms of the people about him with a microscopic 
nicety. There is one episode in this " Eastern 
Sketch," as he called it, that almost pathetically 
illustrates the loneliness of his life in the " Father- 
land." In referring to the " Carnival Season," he 
said : — 

" It was at the close of a dull winter's day — 
a day from which all out-of-door festivity seemed 
to be naturally excluded ; there was a baleful 

promise of snow in the air, and a dismal remini- 

208 



.^0 




Bret Hartc {circa 1899), from (t photcujraph hij Fall. 

ITo face p 208. 



THE CONSUL 

scence of it underfoot, when suddenly, in striking 
contrast with the dreadful bleakness of the street, 
a half-dozen children, masked and bedizened with 
cheajD ribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed 
across my Spion. ... I seized my hat and overcoat 
— a dreadful incongruity to the spangles that had 
whisked by — and followed the vanishing figures 
round the corner. Here they were reinforced by 
a dozen men and women, fantastically but not 
expensively arrayed, looking not unlike the super- 
numeraries of some provincial opera troupe. Fol- 
lowing the crowd, which already began to pour in 
from the side streets, in a few moments I was in 
the broad, grove-like allee, and in the midst of the 
masquer ciders. 

" I remember to have been told that this was 
a characteristic annual celebration of the lower 
classes, anticipated with eagerness and achieved with 
difficulty ; indeed, often through the alternative of 
pawning clothing and furniture to provide the 
means for this ephemeral transformation. I re- 
member being warned also that the buffoonery was 
coarse and some of the slang hardly fit for ' ears 
polite.' But I am afraid that I was not shocked 
at the prodigality of these poor people, who pur- 
chased a holiday on such hard conditions ; and as 
to the coarseness of the performance, I felt that / 
certainly might go where these children could. 

" At first the masquerading figures appeared to 

be mainly composed of young girls, of ages varying 

209 O 



THE CONSUL 

from nine to eighteen. Their costumes — if what 
was often only the addition of a broad, bright 
coloured stripe to the hem of a short dress could 
be called a costume — were plain, and seemed to 
indicate no particular epoch or character. A general 
suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire was domi- 
nant in all the costumes. Everybody was closely 
masked. All carried a short, gaily striped hdton 
of split wood, called a Pritsche, which, when struck 
sharply on the back or shoulders of some spectator 
or sister-masker, emitted a clattering, rasping sound. 
To wander hand-in-hand down this broad allee, 
to strike almost mechanically and often monoto- 
nously at each other with their batons, seemed to 
be the extent of their wild dissipation. The crowd 
thickened ; young men with false noses, hideous 
masks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers 
in uniform, crowded past each other up and down 
the promenade, all carrying a Pritsche, and exchang- 
ing blows with each other, but always with the 
same slow seriousness of demeanour, which with 
their silence gave the performance the effect of a 
religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted, per- 
haps a dozen young fellows broke out in song ; but 
the shout was provocative of nothing, the song 
faltered as if the singers were frightened at their 
own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head 
on his fur-capped shoulders began to dance, but on 
the crowd stopping to observe him seriously, he 
apparently thought better of it, and slipped away. 

2IO 



THE CONSUL 

Nevertheless, the solemn beating of PriUche over 
each other's backs went on. I remember that I was 
followed the whole length of the allee by a little 
girl, scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped 
skirt and black mask, who from time to time 
struck me over the shoulders with a regularity and 
sad persistency that was peculiarly irresistible to 
me ; the more so as I could not help thinking that 
it was not half as amusing to herself Once only 
did the ordinary brusque gallantry of the Carnival 
spirit show itself A man with an enormous pair 
of horns, like a half-civilised satyr, suddenly seized 
a young girl and endeavoured to kiss her. A slight 
struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected in 
the girl's face and manner the confusion and em- 
barrassment of one who was obliged to overlook, 
or seem to accept, a familiarity that was distasteful, 
rather than be laughed at for prudishness or ignor- 
ance ; but the incident was exceptional. Indeed, it 
was particularly noticeable to my American eyes 
to find such decorum where there might easily have 
been the greatest licence. I am afraid that an 
American mob of this class would have scarcely 
been as orderly and civil under the circumstances. 
They might have shown more humour, but there 
would have probably been more effrontery ; they 
might have been more exuberant, they would 
certainly have been drunker. I did not notice a 
single masquerader unduly excited by liquor — there 
was not a word or motion from the lighter sex that 

21 I 



THE CONSUL 

could have been construed into an impropriety. 
There was something almost pathetic to me in this 
attempt to wrest gaiety and excitement out of these 
dull materials — to fight against the blackness of 
that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the 
frozen soil with these painted sticks of wood — to 
mock the dreariness of their poverty with these 
flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or, 
rather, consistent with my idea of them. There 
was incongruity deeper than their bizarre externals ; 
a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in their 
action, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy 
for levity, that rightly or wrongly impressed me. 
When the increasing gloom of the evening made 
their figures indistinguishable, I turned into the 
first cross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent 
young friend with the Pritsche, I fancied she looked 
as relieved as myself If, however, I was mistaken 
— if that child's pathway through life be strewn 
with rosy recollections of the unresisting back of the 
stranger American — if any burden, O Gretchen, laid 
upon thy young shoulders be lighter for the trifling 
one thou didst lay upon mine, know then that I 
too am content." 

No doubt those were somewhat doleful days for 
the isolated Consul of Crefeld. But, as his sketches 
and stories show, he made good use of them, and in 
due season established himself in Glasgow. The 
change gladdened his heart. To say nothing of the 
historical associations of Scotland, it was something 

212 



THE CONSUL 

for Bret Harte to be in the land of Robert Burns 
and Sir Walter Scott. I doubt if any Scotchman 
knew their undying works better than this visitor 
from over the seas. 

Amongst the friends he had made in London 
were M. Arthur and Madame Van de Velde. M. 
Van de Velde belonged to the Belgian Diplomatic 
Service ; he was many years Councillor of Legation in 
London, and retired with the rank of Minister Resident, 
as he could not with his large family take an impor- 
tant appointment offered him at Mexico. Madame 
Van de Velde was the daughter of the Comtesse 
de Launay, wife of the Italian Ambassador in Berlin. 
Madame Van de Velde was a lady who had not only 
enjoyed singular opportunities of studying life in high 
places, but of great literary tastes and achievements, 
as witness her " Random Recollections of Courts and 
Society," " Cosmopolitan Recollections," " French Fic- 
tion of To-day," and other notable works, to say 
nothing of successful labours in different branches of 
the world of art and letters. She and her husband 
were enthusiastic admirers of the writings of Bret 
Harte, and he, never prone to very close friendships, 
found in them comrades after his own heart. In 
their hospitable London house he found, whenever 
he needed one, a second home, and the good influ- 
ence of this pleasant association over his subsequent 
literary career will presently be seen. 

To Madame Van de Velde he wrote some of his 

earliest experiences of Scotland. 

213 



THE CONSUL 

"Glasgow, Septeriiher lo, 1880. 

" My dear Madame Van de Velde, — Why do 
you permit yourself to live at a place with such a 
name as ' South Sheen ? ' What is the ' sheen ' 
anyway ? Is it the glitter from the sea, or the 
genial eifulgency of your presence that gives a name 
to your local habitation ? And why ' South ? ' 

" The photographs taken by are too atro- 
cious to give to anybody, much less a critical and 
mischievous woman. So I have written to Germany 
for some of the old ones, taken in real sunlight, and 
I will keep my word with you when they come. 
There was a portrait of me in a magazine. You 
should see that remarkable picture. It is so faint, 
so spiritual, so ghostly and apparition-like that I 
^am afraid to stay in the room with it in the dark. 

" The weather has been preternaturally (I didn't 
know that word was really so very long, please excuse 
me !) fine all over Scotland, but most gracious, I 
think, at Innellan — a charming little watering-place 
on the west coast, where I go every night from 
Glasgow. I am sorry you do not like the seaside ; 
but you must remember this is not the staring, over- 
dressed, negro-minstrel haunted, children-shovelling 
beach of Brighton, nor the fashionable, fuU-toiletted 
sands of Trouville or Etretat. It is a craggy shelf 
of tangled seaweed and rocks, blown over by foam 
and breeze ; the gentlemen bathe from small boats 
in the ofhng, quite au naturel, and honest but awfully 

plain Scotch lassies apparently are baptized in long 

214 



THE CONSUL 

grey and black gowns and then stride home without 
stockings. But I have picked up some Httle health 
here and some little experience, both of which I need. 

" The Scotch people are very queer, but in the main 
very kind and hospitable. I have no reason to com- 
plain. On my birthday, which became quite acci- 
dentally known to a few friends in the hotel, my 
table was covered with bouquets of flowers and little 
remembrances from cigar cases to lockets. 

" As I am trying to get up a good reputation 
here I stay at my post pretty regularly, occasionally 
making a cheap excursion. This is a country for 
them. The other day I went to Staffa. It was 
really the only ' sight ' in Europe that quite filled 
all my expectations. But alas ! that magnificent, 
cathedral-like cave was presently filled with a 
howling party of sandwich-eating tourists, splashing 
in the water and climbing up the rocks. One should 
only go there alone, or with some sympathetic spirit. 
Permit me to suggest that we go there together ! i-^ 

Write me again. I like your letters. I'll keep 
my promise about the photograph and anything else 
you may ask of yours always, 

Bret Harte." 

It was in 1880 that he made the acquaintance 

of a brother author, for whose work he had much 

admiration, William Black. In Sir Wemyss Reid's 

biography of that fascinating writer we get many 

glimpses of the Glasgow Consul. Speaking of an 

215 



THE CONSUL 

expedition to visit the ruined abbeys of Eastern 
Yorkshire, which was arranged by Sir George Womb- 
w^ell of Balaclava fame, he says : " Black, Bret Harte, 
Mr. Shepard, the American Vice-Consul at Bradford, 
and myself were Sir George's guests. We met at 
York one Saturday morning in April, and as our 
host was not to arrive till dinner-time we resolved 
to spend the afternoon in a visit to the battlefield of 
Marston Moor. Black was delighted with all that 
he saw ; delighted too with the companionship of 
Bret Harte and Shepard. . . . We were to dine at 
the Yorkshire Club that evening with Sir George 
Wombwell, and as Black, who had never met Sir 
George, and who was always shy of strangers, 
declared that he would not go to the dinner unless 
I went also, I accompanied the party to the club, 
though by rights I ought to have been in bed.^ I 
remember few more lively evenings than that. Black 
and Bret Harte, whose acquaintance he had just 
made, vied with each other in the good stories they 
told and the repartees they exchanged." 

The intimacy beween the two authors grew apace. 
On May i st Black, writing to his suffering friend from 
the Beform Club, said, " Bret Harte went down to us 
at Brighton, and if we didn't amuse him he certainly 
amused us. He is coming down again next week." 

And again on June 2nd. " Possess your soul in 

1 Unluckily, in scrambling over a hedge on the battletield, Sir Weuiyss 
Reid met with a serious and most i)aiuful accident, which crippled him 
for some months. 

216 



THE CONSUL 

patience ; it will be better for you in the end. And 
in a few weeks' time don't be surprised if Bret Harte 
and I come to look you up — that is if he is not com- 
pelled for mere shame's sake to go to his consular 
duties (!!!) at once. He is the most extraordinary 
globule of mercury-comet-aerolite-flash of lightning 
doing Catherine wheels I ever had any experience of. \ 
Nobody knows where he is, and the day before yester- 
day I discovered here a pile of letters that had been 
slowly accumulating for him since February 1879. 
It seems he never reported himself to the all-seeing 
Escott" (the hall porter of the Reform Club), "and 
never asked for letters when he got his month's 
honorary membership last year. People are now 
sending letters to him from America addressed to 
me at Brighton ! But he is a mystery and the cause 
of mystifications. I heard the other day that a Society 
paper had printed a minute account of how I had been 
driving Bret Harte and other friends in Yorkshire in 
a phaeton, had upset the whole concern, and half 
murdered nearly all the party." 

The sudden disappearances to which Black thus 
laughingly refers are accounted for by the fact that, 
while London attracted him, the Consul felt bound 
to put in many appearances at Glasgow, and he spent 
much of his time in travelling over the long distance 
that divides the two great cities. 

Bret Harte conceived as great a liking for William 
Black as he had appreciation for his works. But he 

did not sympathise with him in all his pursuits, as 

217 



THE CONSUL 

witness this letter, written to the author of *' A 
Daughter of Heth," one of the favourite modern books 
of the author of " The Luck of Roaring Camp " : — 

" My dear Black, — I was in the far south, trying 
to get rid of an obstinate cold, when your note reached 
me ; and I haven't been in London for some time. I 
expected you to drop in here (Glasgow) on your way 
up to ' Balnagownie's arms ' — whoever she may be. 
I'm afraid I don't want any ' Ardgay ' in mine, thank 
you. Why any man in this damp climate should 
want to make himself wetter by salmon fishing passes j 
my comprehension. Is there no drier spot to be had 
in all Great Britain ? I shudder at the name of a 
river, and shiver at the sight of any fish that isn't 
dried. I hear, too, that you are in the habit of 
making poetry on these occasions, and that you are J 
dropping lines all over the place. How far is that 
place — anyway ? I shall be in Glasgow until the end 
of March, and if you'll dry yourself thoroughly and 
come in and dine with me at that time, I'll show you 
how ' the labouring poor ' of Glasgow live. — Yours 
always, Bret Harte." 

In his most interesting and valuable volume, Sir 
Wemyss Held gives another pleasant picture of the 
two writers. Quoting Mr. Bradbury, he says : " Mr. 
Bret Harte, when he was American Consul at Glas- 
gow, often visited Black at Oban. On one occasion a 

German band had taken up its position in front of 

218 



THE CONSUL 

the Alexandra Hotel, where the two novelists were 
staying, and was braying out its brazen music with 
great vigour. Presently a Highland piper took up 
his position near the band, and with mincing step and 
many flourishes gave full voice to his instrument. ' I 
just bet the piper will beat the Teutons,' said Mr. 
Harte. And he was right. The band retired dis- 
comfited. ' But that isn't the real piping at all,' 
observed Black. ' Is the real thing, then, more in- 
tense ? ' asked Harte. ' Yes ; you should hear a band 
of pipers, say at Edinburgh. Their combined music 
was once described by an entranced listener as " Jest 
like Paradise." Was it not Sydney Smith who said 
that his idea of heaven was eating foie gras to the 
sound of trumpets ? A Scotchman would have said 
bagpipes instead of trumpets.' " 

Poor Bret Harte ! Remembering his delicate ear 
for music I can fancy him saying to himself, with one 
thought for the brazen blasts of Anglicised Germany 
and another for the shrilling wood-wind of our well- 
loved Scotland, " I'm afraid I don't want any Paradise 
in mine, thank you." 

He grew very fond of Black and kept many of his 
letters. To show the genial nature of their friendship 
I may quote from one or two of them. 

" Brighton. 

" My dear Harte, — Where are you concealing 

yourself now ? Are you likely to be anywhere on 

Saturday the 23rd ? I am giving some of the boys a 

219 



THE CONSUL 

little sustenance on an occasion of mutual interest. I 
should be exceeding glad if you would step into the 
Reform Club at 7.45. — Yours always, 

William Black." 

" Leeds. 
" Received from Bret Harte One Razor, in very 
good condition — considermg. William Black." 

" Reform Club. 
" My dear Youth, — I have just heard that you 
are In London, and send a note to your former address 
on chance. If you are disengaged on Sunday night 
will you run down to Brighton and contemplate the 
vast ocean ? I have scarcely been three seconds in 
one place for the last two months ; and it was by 
the merest accident I have just heard of your having 
come south. — Yours very faithfully, '^■ 

William Black." 

" Brighton. 
" My dear Harte, — There's a man called John 
Hay in London just now. They say he has written 1 
things. It would be very odd if you were to walk 
into the Reform Club on June ist at 7 p.m., and sit 
down to dinner with him ; and then you might come 
down here next day for a night or two. — Yours 
faithfully, William Black." 

" P.S. — There's another man called Lawrence 

Barrett who's going to eat food on the same evening 

at the same place." 

220 



THE CONSUL 

I quote these letters to show that there were 
many inducements for the Glasgow Consul to " come 
South." He liked Black and his coterie, and was of 
course rejoiced at the opportunity of meeting his old 
American friends. Sometimes, and by some people, 
he was blamed for not " staying North," but he had 
men with him at the Consulate upon whom he could 
absolutely rely, and it was only natural that he 
should escape as often as he could from his monotonous 
official duties, take his hands to the fire of life, andi_. 
warm them. If some who called were irate at not 
finding him at his post they could at least see the 
admirable portrait of him that hung over the chimney- 
piece, and which is now in my possession. For Colonel 
John Hay, who had " written things," he retained a 
life-long affection, and the highest admiration. He 
was fond of saying that the " Pike County Ballads," 
with their immortal stories of " Little Breeches," and 
Jim Bludso's heroic death in the wreck of the Prairie 
Bell were finer than anything of that sort he had 
done himself, though, according to Mr. Noah Brooks, 
Colonel Hay "wrote those ballads to convince his 
friends that imitations were easily made, and it was 
long after their private publication that he consented 
to their translation into the immortality of print." 

At the period with which I am now dealing. 
Colonel Hay was wont to send encouraging messages 
to the still somewhat lonely Consul, and they were 
carefully kept and cherished. Writing from the 
Department of State at Washington, he said : — 

221 



THE CONSUL 

" I want before my sands run out to say ' How ? ' 
to you once more, and to assure you of my eternal 
love and esteem. ... I do not know what Heaven 

meant by creating so few men like and you. 

The scarcity of you is an injury not only to us, but to 
yourselves. There are not enough of you to go round, 
and the world pulls and hauls at you till you are 
completely spoiled. . . . Well, good-bye, and good 
health and good spirits and everything good be 
yours. John Hay." 

Here are other specimens of his strong tempta- 
tions to " come South : " — 

" 12 Gayton Orescent, Hampstead. 

" My dear Harte, — Don't forget your promise 
to ' fetch along ' Howells and the other American men 
of letters now in London. Choose your own day for 
the dinner. If you will send me the list we will 
divide them out as guests. Howells is a member of 
the Club, and he would not be anybody's guest. — 
Very truly yours, Walter Besant." 

" lo Lowndes Square, London, S.W. 

" Dear Harte, -Will you dine with us on the 
I oth ? You will save us from the fatal number 
thirteen. We should, of course, have invited you 
earlier had we known you were in town. 'Tis 
Mrs. Lowell's first dinner-party, and would be made 
yet more historic by your presence. — Faithfully 
yours, J. R. Lowell." 

222 



1 



THE CONSUL 

Here is another genial letter from Mr. Lowell, 
which should be quoted : — 



" Legation op the United States, 
" London. 

" Dear Harte, — Can you tell me whether adobe 
is pronounced c^is-syllabically or ^?^^-syllabically in 
California ? I ask on behalf of the Philological 
Society's Dictionary. — Faithfully yours, 

J. E. Lowell." 

"P.>S. — Pray instruct whoever sends your tele- 
grams that my name is not Dowell. In carpentry it 
has a better meaning than mine, but doesn't belong 
to me." 



As the "adobe" question has troubled, and still 
troubles, many of Bret Harte's readers it may be 
explained here. It is pronounced as if spelt "ad-o-baj," 
and it designates the bricks made of earth and horse- 
hair or straw, used without mortar, and in constant 
use for building purposes in early Californian days. 
Or it may mean the rich, unctuous loam used for this 
purpose, but of great fertile quality. 

In addition to London allurements and distractions 

he was again in request as a lecturer, and as he could 

now fix his own fee, such engagements (though I am 

sure he never liked them) were not to be despised. 

How could he refuse such an offer as this ? 

223 



THE CONSUL 

" The Molt, 2nd October. 

" My dear Harte, — The Hull people sent their 
invitation through me, I suppose because your move- 
ments, like those of Royalties and Cabinet Ministers, 
are reported in the newspapers, and they saw that 
you had been staying here. But they took action on 
their own account unprompted by me. They are 
anxious to see you. They are liberal, and therefore 
you may name your own terms. I think you may 
safely tell them, and tell every one who applies to 
you, that you must have ^50 a lecture at least, and 
can go nowhere for less. 

" Probably in many places they will offer you 
more, but we are taken in this world at our own 
Aestimate of ourselves, and if we rate ourselves high 
the more other people will give for us. I remember 
a tobacconist at Oxford who made his fortune by 
selling his cigars on that principle. 

" Very likely you may think ^50 much too little, 
and of course it is too little ; all I mean is that this 
should be your lowest figure. Lecturing is hateful 
work. I always wondered how Emerson took so 
kindly to it. 

" We are still in our summer quarters, but we 

flutter in a purposeless way up and down the walks 

like swallows before the emigration. We take wing 

in two or three weeks. Professor Owen tells us the 

birds move automatically on those occasions, and know I 

nothing about it. I wish I could, 

" We shall be visiting for two or three weeks in 

224 



THE CONSUL 

December. With that exception, and assuming 
always that I do not go under in the course of it, we 
shall be the whole season in London without moving. 
" Then we shall expect to see you. — Yours most 
truly, J. A. Froude." 

Leeds wanted to see him as well as Hull, and in 
that famous Yorkshire centre of industry he received 
a welcome of which he was very proud. Among the 
few papers he valued and kept was a copy of The 
Leeds Mercury, in which a writer who evidently 
understood him said — 

" The recent visit of Mr. Bret Harte to Leeds 
reawakens public interest in one of the most mem- 
orable literary successes the world has ever known. 
Of Mr. Bret Harte himself, and the established 
position he has gained in the literary world, there 
can be no need to speak. He has long since taken 
his place among the great men of genius, by whom 
the glory of our English literature is sustained. It 
is quite certain that if we except Hawthorne, he is 
the most distinctive author America has yet given 
to the world. Other men, like Longfellow, Lowell, 
Whittier, and Emerson, have done splendid work, 
and have gained for themselves a great place in 
the literary hierarchy. But brilliant as their work 
is, it lacks the originality which marks a man like 
Bret Harte, as being the special outcome, as it were, 
of a new race, the pioneer of a new school of thought 

and work and culture. They are like miners who 

225 p 



THE CONSUL 

have achieved great and striking successes when 
working in old mines, the treasures of which had, 
in part at least, been made known to the world 
long before they appeared upon the scene. Mr. 
Harte, on the contrary, may be said to have tapped 
Aa new vein in literature, as rich and inexhaustible 
as those mines of mineral wealth which the pioneers 
in the settlement of California first discovered ; and 
as one of the founders of the literature of the United 
States he will hereafter, without doubt, hold a lead- 
ing place among the classical authors of that great 
country. No one can read his poems and tales 
without being struck by the fact that in him, as 
in so many of the great writers of all countries and 
ages, humour and pathos are blended together in 
the closest union. At one moment he provokes to 
laughter, at another to tears. To speak of him as 
being, like Mark Twain, for example, a mere humor- 
ist, is utterly absurd. It is indeed the poetical gift 
that he possesses in the highest degree, and it is 
to the poet's insight into human nature that he 
owes his brilliant success in literature. It has been 
his ability to see the soul of good lying under the 
evil exterior, his power of showing us in the simplest 
and yet the most forcible manner how, among the 
wild, rough, hardened, and too often degraded men 
and women who were the founders of that new 
America which lies on the western seaboard of the 
mighty continent, human virtues were to be found, 

as tender and sweet and noble as any that the most 

226 






THE CONSUL 

refined society in Europe could produce, that has 
given for him his wonderful hold upon the reading 
world. Like Charles Dickens, whom in many most 
essential respects he resembles, he has employed his 
splendid powers of humour, not to caricature, but 
to illustrate human life and human nature ; and some 
of the most brilliant of his humorous pieces have 
been written with a very serious intent." 

Then there were visits to country houses, where 
he was always a welcome member of a genial house - 
party, and when he from time to time (but not very 
enthusiastically, I think) took part in British sport. 

On one of these occasions he wrote to me from 
Innellan — 

" My dear Pemberton, — Don't be alarmed if you 
should hear of my having nearly blown the top of 
my head off. Last Monday I had my face badly 
cut by the recoil of an overloaded gun. I do not 
know yet beneath these bandages whether I shall 
be permanently marked. At present I am invisible, 
and have tried to keep the accident a secret. 

" When the surgeon was stitching me together 
the son of the house, a boy of twelve, came timidly 
to the door of my room. ' Tell Mr. Bret Harte 
it's all right,' he said ; ' he killed the hare ! ' — Yours 
always, Bret Harte." 

But consular duties (however slight they may 

have been), lectures, and diversions in town and 

227 



THE CONSUL 

country, combined to make his pen an idle one, a 
fact that his truest friends deeply regretted. In 
the March of 1882 he was deeply distressed to hear 
of the death of Longfellow, and then he sat down 
to his desk to pay his tribute to a poet of whose 
work he could never speak too highly. He seemed 
to set little store by his article, and did not publish 
it in his collected writings. Except by a few it is 
to-day forgotten, but in his biography it must surely 
have an honoured place. 

" Longfellow. 

"As I write the name that stands at the head 
of this page my eyes fill with far-off memory. While 
I know that every reader to whom that name was 
familiar felt that it recalled to him some thought, 
experience, or gentle daily philosophy which he had 
made his own, I fear that I, reading the brief message 
that flashed his death under the sea and over a 
continent, could not recall a line of his poetry, but 
only revived a picture of the past in which he had 
lived and moved. But this picture seemed so much 
a part of himself, and himself so much a part of his 
poetry, that I cannot help transferring it here. Few 
poets, I believe, so strongly echoed their song in 
themselves, in their tastes, their surroundings, and 
even in their experiences, as Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow. 

" I am recalling a certain early spring day in New 

England twelve years ago. A stranger myself to the 

228 



THE CONSUL 

climate for over seventeen years, that day seemed to 
me most characteristic of the transcendent incon- 
sistencies of that purely local phenomenon. There 
had been frost in the early morning, followed by 
thaw ; it had rained, it had hailed, there had been 
snow. The latter had been imitated in breezy 
moments of glittering sunshine by showers of white 
blossoms that filled the air. At nightfall, earth, air, 
and sky stiffened again under the rigour of a north- 
east wind, and when at midnight with another 
lingering guest we parted from our host under the 
elms at his porch, we stepped out into the moonlight 
of a winter night, ' God makes such nights,' one t--- 
could not help thinking in the words of one of 
America's most characteristic poets ; one was only 
kept from uttering it aloud by the fact that the host 
himself was that poet. /-' / .> . /. 

" The other guest had playfully suggested that he 
should be my guide home in the midnight perils that 
might environ a stranger in Cambridge, and we 
dismissed the carriage, to walk the two miles that 
lay between our host's house on the river Charles and 
his own nearer the centre of this American university 
city. Although I had met him several times before 
in a brief week of gaiety, until that evening I do not 
think I had clearly known him. I like to recall him 
at that moment, as he stood in the sharp moonlight 
of the snow-covered road ; a dark mantle-like cloak 
hiding his evening dress, and a slouched felt hat 

covering his full silver-like locks. The conventional 

229 



THE CONSUL 

gibus or chimney-pot would have been as intolerable 
on that wonderful brow as it would on a Greek statue, 
and I was thankful there was nothing to interrupt 
the artistic harmony of the most impressive vignette 
I ever beheld. I hope that the enthusiasm of a much 
younger man will be pardoned when I confess that 
the dominant feeling in my mind was an echo of one 
I had experienced a few weeks before, when I had 
penetrated Niagara at sunrise on a Sunday morning 
after a heavy snowfall and found that masterpiece 
unvisited, virgin to my tread, and my own footsteps 
the only track to the dizzy edge of Prospect Rock. 
I was to have the man I most revered alone with me 
for half-an-hour in the sympathetic and confidential 
stillness of the night. The only excuse I have for 
recording this enthusiasm is that the only man who 
might have been embarrassed by it never knew it, 
and was as sublimely unconscious as the waterfall. 

" I think I was at first moved by his voice. It 
was a very deep baritone without a trace of harshness, 
but veiled and reserved as if he never parted entirely 
from it, and with the abstraction of a soliloquy even 
in his most earnest moments. It was not melancholy, 
yet it suggested one of his own fancies as it fell from 
his silver-fringed lips 

' Like the water's flow 
Undei' Decembex-'s snow.' 

It was the voice that during our homeward walk 

flowed on with kindly criticism, gentle philosophy, 

230 



THE CONSUL 

picturesque illustration, and anecdote. As I was the 
stranger, he half earnestly, half jestingly kept up the 
role of guide, philosopher, and friend, and began an 
amiable review of the company we had just left. 
As it had comprised a few names, the greatest in 
American literature, science, and philosophy, I was 
struck with that generous contemporaneous apprecia- 
tion which distinguished this Round Table, of whom 
no knight was more courtly and loving than my 
companion. It should be added that there was a 
vein of gentle playfulness in his comment, which 
scarcely could be called humour, an unbending of 
attitude rather than a different phase of thought or 
turn of sentiment ; a relaxation from his ordinary 
philosophic earnestness and truthfulness. Readers 
will remember it in his playful patronage of the 
schoolmaster's sweetheart in the ' Birds of Killing- 
worth,' 

' Who was, as in a sonnet he had said. 
As pure as water, and as good as bread.' 

Yet no one had a quieter appreciation of humour, and 

his wonderful skill as a raconteur, and his opulence of 

memory, justified the saying of his friends, that ' no 

one ever heard him tell an old story or repeat a new 

one.' 

" Living always under the challenge of his own 

fame, and subject to that easy superficial criticism 

which consists in enforced comparison and rivalry, he 

never knew envy. Those who understood him will 

readily recognise his own picture in the felicitous 

231 



THE CONSUL 

praise intended for another, known as ' The Poet,' 
in the ' Tales of a Wayside Inn,' who 

' did not find his sleep less sweet 
For music in some neighbouring street.' 

" But if I was thus, most pleasantly because unos- 
tentatiously, reminded of the poet's personality, I was 
equally impressed with the local colour of his poetry 
in the surrounding landscape. We passed the bridge 
on which we had once stood at midnight, and saw, 
as he had seen, the moon 

' Like a golden goblet falling 
And sinking in the sea ' ; 

we saw, as Paul Revere once saw, 

* the gilded weathei-cock 
Swim in the moonlight,' 

and passing a plain Puritan church, whose uncom- 
promising severity of style even the tender graces 
of the moon could not soften, I knew that it must 
have been own brother to the ' meeting-house ' at 
Lexington, where 

' windows, blank and bare, 
Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 
As if they already stood aghast, 
At the bloody work they would look upon.' 

" Speaking of these spiritual suggestions in material 
things, I remember saying that I thought there must 

first be some actual resemblance, which unimagina- 

232 



THE CONSUL 

tive people must see before the poet could success- 
fully use them. I instanced the case of his own 
description of a camel as being ' weary ' and ' baring 
his teeth,' and added that I had seen them throw such 
infinite weariness into that action after a day's journey 
as to set spectators yawning. He seemed surprised, 
so nmch so that I asked him if he had seen many — 
fully believing he had travelled in the desert. He 
replied simply, ' No,' that he had ' only seen one 
once in the Jardin des Plantes' Yet in that brief 
moment he had noticed a distinctive fact, which the 
larger experience of others fully corroborated. 

" We reached his house — fit goal for a brief journey 
filled with historical reminiscences, for it was one of 
the few old colonial mansions, relics of a bygone age, 
still left intact. A foreigner of great distinction had 
once dwelt there ; later it had been the head-quarters 
of General Washington. Stately only in its size and 
the liberality of its offices, it stood back from the 
street, guarded by the gaunt arms of venerable trees. 
We entered the spacious central hall, with no sound 
in the silent house but the ticking of that famous 
clock on the staircase — the clock whose 'Forever — 
never ! Never — forever ! ' has passed into poetic im- 
mortality. The keynote of association and individu- 
ality here given filled the house with its monotone ; 
scarcely a room had not furnished a theme or a sug- 
gestion, found and recognised somewhere in the poet's 
song ; where the room whose tiled hearth still bore the 
marks of the grounding of the heavy muskets of soldiery 



THE CONSUL 

in the troublous times ; the drawing-room still fur- 
nished as Washington had left it ; the lower stairway, 
in whose roofed recess the poet himself had found a 
casket of love-letters which told a romance and intrigue 
of the past ; or the poet's study, which stood at the 
right of the front door. It was here that the ghosts 
most gathered, and as my guide threw aside his , 
mantle and drew an easy -chair to the fireside, he 
looked indeed the genius of the place. He had 
changed his evening dress for a black velvet coat, 
against which his snowy beard and long flowing 
locks were strikingly relieved. It was the costume 
of one of his best photographs ; the costume of an 
artist who without vanity would carry his taste even 
to the details of his dress. The firelight lit up this 
picturesque figure, gleamed on the ' various spoils of 
various climes' gathered in the tasteful apartment, 
revealed the shadowy depths of the bookshelves, 
where the silent company, the living children of 
dead and gone poets, were ranged, and lost itself in 
the gusty curtains. 

" As we sat together the wind began its old song in 
the chimney, but with such weird compass and com- 
bination of notes that it seemed the call of a familiar 
spirit. 'It is a famous chimney,' said the poet, 
leaning over the fire, ' and has long borne a local 
reputation for its peculiar song. Ole Bull, sitting in 
your chair one night, caught it quite with his instru- 
ment.' 

" Under the same overpowering domination of him- 

234 



THE CONSUL 

self and his own personality, here as elsewhere, I 
could not help remembering how he himself had 
caught and transfigured not only its melody, but its 
message, in that most perfect of human reveries, 
' The Wind over the Chimney ' — 

' But the night wind cries, " Despair ! 
Those who walk with feet of air 

Leave no long enduring marks ; 
At God's foi^ges incandescent 
Mighty hammers beat incessant, 

These are but the flying sparks. 

Dust are all the hands that wrought, 
Books are sepiilchres of thought ; 

The dead laurels of the dead 
Rustle for a moment only. 
Like the withered leaves in lonely 

Chm-chyards at some passing tread. 

Suddenly the flame sinks down ; 
Sink the rumours of renown ; 

And alone the night wind drear 
Clamours louder, wilder, vaguer, — 
'Tis the brand of Meleager 

Dying on the hearthstone here ! " 

And I answer, — " Though it be. 
Why should that discomfort me ? 

No endeavour is in vain. 
Its reward is in the doing. 
And the rapture of pursuing 

Is the prize the vanquished gain." ' 

" Why should not the ghosts gather here ? Into 
this quaint historic house he had brought the poet's 
retentive memory filled with the spoils of foreign 

235 



THE CONSUL 

climes. He had built his nest with rare seeds, 
grasses, and often the stray feathers of other song 
birds gathered in his flight. Into it had come the 
great humanities of life, the bridal procession, the 
christening, death — death in a tragedy that wrapped 
those walls in flames, bore away the faithful young 
mother and left a gap in the band of ' blue-eyed j 
banditti' who used to climb the poet's chair. The 
keynote of that sublime resignation and tender 
philosophy which has overflowed so many hearts 
with pathetic endurance was struck here ; it was 
no cold abstract sermon preached from an intellectual 
pulpit, but the daily lessons of experience, of chastened 
trial shaped into melodious thought. How could we 
help but reverence the instrument whose smitten 
chords have given forth such noble ' Psalms of 
Life'? 

" Such is the picture conjured by his name. Near 
and more recent contact with him never dimmed its 
tender outlines. I like now to remember that I last 
saw him in the same quaint house, but with the 
glorious mellow autumnal setting of the New Eng- 
land year, and the rich, garnered fulness of his own 
ripe age. There was no suggestion of the end in his 
deep kind eyes, in his deep-veiled voice, or in his calm 
presence ; characteristically it had been faintly voiced 
in his address to his classmates of fifty years before. 
He had borrowed the dying salutation of the gladiator 
in the Roman arena only to show that he expected 

death, but neither longed for it nor feared it." 

236 

I 



THE CONSUL 

With his intimate friends Bret Harte ever de- 
Hghted to talk enthusiastically of Longfellow, and 
would declare that his poems had greatly influenced 
his thoughts and life. But he doubted if he was 
sufficiently appreciated in England. I remember once 
arguing with him on this point, and so far convinc- 
ing him as to make him say : " Oh yes ; no doubt 
the shorter poems, the perfect ' Psalm of Life ' — 
the soothing ' Resignation,' and so forth, are well 
known — but who, for instance, really cares for ' Hia- 
watha ' ? — and yet ' Hiawatha ' is not only a wonder- 
ful poem, but a marvellously true descriptive narrative 
of Indian life and lore." I think he knew it all by 
heart. And yet, notwithstanding all his almost in- 
dignant fervour concerning it he was soon set heartily 
laughing when he was reminded how W. S. Gilbert 
had cleverly travestied the " Hiawatha " methods in 
his " Princess Toto." 

Bret Harte's happily renewed industry as an 
author was largely due to the kindly interest of his 
good friend Madame Van de Velde. It troubled her 
to think that a hand, capable of doing such unique 
and invaluable work, should be turning itself to 
things well within the reach of less gifted men. 
Therefore she did everything within her power to 
induce him to sit at his desk and continue his literary 
labours. He needed such an earnest adviser, for, as 
I have already said, he did not like authorship for 
its own sake, and he was ever prone to undervalue 
his own power. But, being well and discreetly urged, 

237 



i 



THE CONSUL ^ 



he set to work again, and one of the first stories he 
wrote on British soil was the eminently characteristic 
^ Californian romance, " Found at Blazing Star." 

Directly the Glasgow Consul took pen in hand the 
old pictures, in vivid colours, were flashed upon the 
screen, and it was easy for him in far-off Scotland 
to write — 

" The rain had only ceased with the grey streaks 
of morning at Blazing Star, and the settlement awoke , 
to a moral sense of cleanliness, and the finding of 
forgotten knives, tin cups, and smaller camp utensils, 
where the heavy showers had washed away the 
debris and dust heaps before the cabin doors. Indeed, 
it was reported in Blazing Star that a fortunate 
early riser had once picked up on the highway a solid 
chunk of gold quartz, which the rain had freed from 
its encumbering soil and washed into immediate and 
glittering popularity. Possibly this may have been 
the reason why early risers in that locality during 
the rainy season adopted a thoughtful habit of body, 
and seldom lifted their eyes to the rifted or india- 
inked washed skies above them." 

He sent this story, with others, to Colonel John 
Hay, and from Paris received this interesting criticism 
of his efforts — 

" Mrs. Hay and I have been reading ' Flip ' and 

* Found at Blazing Star.' ' Flip ' is beyond criticism, 

but ' Blazing Star ' — I say it boldly — is too short. 

You had the material of a magnificent long story, 

238 



THE CONSUL 

and you have condensed it so that it is as hard to 
keep up with you as for a dog running after an 
express train to enjoy the scenery. Any other man 
hving would have padded it up to three times its 
size — but you always did run to nuggets. Why 
should you spare the publisher by giving him un- 
alloyed metal when eighteen carat would suit him so 
much better ? 

" When is that play coming out ? I will come to 
London for that if I have strength enough to lie in 
a gutter and call for a coach. . . . What a charm- 
ing story Besant's ' Revolt of Man ' is ! I read it 
on Sunday with breathless interest and continued 
delight. — Yours faithfully, my dear Harte, 

John Hay." 

With the craft once more under way the oarsman 
did not fail, but rowed steadily on until he had the 
satisfaction of knowing that his work was as highly 
prized and as eagerly secured in England as in 
America. Whether if he had not been well coached 
and cheered from the bank-sides he would have fal- 
tered, one cannot say. But he enjoyed the encourage- 
ment of true friends, and he was grateful for it. His 
sense of indebtedness to Madame Van de Velde, who 
not only advised but practically helped him, is shown 
in the following letter : — 

"London, i8th May 1883. 

" My dear Friend, — When I beg you to accept 
the enclosed portfolio I do not for a moment ever 

239 



THE CONSUL 

expect it to supplant the memory of the old one 
which is endeared to me by the recollection of the 
hours you have spent over it in deciphering my ex- 
asperating manuscripts and making them intelligible 
to the printer, or in giving them another chance for 
immortality by clothing them in the language of your 
own native land. I am only trying to symbolise in 
this little gift something of my gratitude to you as 
amanuensis, translator, critic, and above all — friend. 

" I am not King of France or I should quote to 
miy Prime Minister the words of Louis to Richelieu : 
' Lord Cardinal, you must take up again the port- 
folio you have laid down. In all my empire there 
is none worthy to follow you.' — Always, dear friend, 
yours most gratefully, Bret Harte." 

Madame Van de Velde. 

Once more, as many of his stories show, he took 
his tone from his surroundings, and Scotland has a 
prominent place in many of his writings. He was 
interested in all he saw there, and in a wonderfully 
short time achieved a mastery of the rather difficult 
Scottish dialect. This is nowhere better shown than 
in some burlesque rhymes he sent to his artist friend, 
Mr. Alexander Stuart Boyd — 

SCOTCH LINES TO A. S. B. 

{From an Unintellvjent Foreigner.) 

" We twa hae heard the gowans sing, 

Sae soft and dour, sae fresh and grey ; 
And paidlet in the brae, in Spring, 

To scent the new mown ' Scots wha hae.' 
240 



THE CONSUL 

But maist we loo'ed at e'en to chase 

The pibroch through each wynd and close, 

Or climb the burn to greet an' face 
The skeendhvis gangin' wi' their Joes, 

How aft we said ' Eh, Sirs ! ' and ' Mon ! ' 

Likewise ' Whateffei' ' — apropos 
Of notliing. And pinned faith upon 

' Aiblins ' — though why we didna' know. 

We've heard nae mon say ' gowd ' for ' gold,' 
And yet wi' all oui' tongues upcurled, 

We — like the British drum beat rolled 
Our ' Rs ' round all the speaking worruld. 

How like true Scots we didna care 

A bawbee for the present tense, 
And said ' we will be ' when we were, 

'Twas bonny, but it wasna sense. 

And yet ' ma frien ' and ' trusty frere,' 
We'll take a right gude ' Willie Waught,' 

Tho' what that may be is not clear, 
Nor where it can be made or bought." 

Of this little achievement, written in sheer high 
spirits, Bret Harte was inclined to be proud ; and 
when he told me of it, and quoted from it, I never 
reminded him (for Dickens-lover though he was, 
he had clearly forgotten the circumstance) that 
David Copperfield, in describing a convivial evening 
spent with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, had said, " We 
sang ' Auld Lang Syne.' When we came to 
' Here's a hand, my trusty frere,' we all joined 
hands round the table, and when we declared we 

241 Q 



THE CONSUL 

would ' take a right gude Willie Waught,' and 
hadn't the least idea what it meant, we were really 
affected ; " or that at another memorable gathering, 
when Mr. Micawber was proposing the health of 
" My friend, Copperfield," he remarked that : — 

" ' We twa hae run about the braes 
And pu'd the gowans fine ' 

— in a figurative point of view — on several occasions. 
I am not exactly aware what gowans may be, but 
I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would 
frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had 
been feasible." 

Mr. Boyd illustrated several of his stories, and 
Bret Harte, always difficult to please in such 
matters, was delighted with the way in which he 
depicted his characters. 

One of his best studies of Scotch life and character 
is to be found in his pretty tale, "Young Robin 
Gray," and as it gives us a peep into his consular life 
it is well to recall a fragment of it here : — 

" The good American barque Skyscraper was 

swinging at her moorings in the Clyde off Bannock, 

ready for sea. But that good American barque— 

although owned in Baltimore — had not a plank of 

American timber in her hulk, nor a native American 

in her crew, and even her nautical 'goodness' had 

been called into serious question by divers of that 

crew during her voyage, and answered more or less 

inconclusively with belaying - pins, marlin - spikes, 

242 



THE CONSUL 

and ropes' ends at the hands of an Irish-American 
captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much 
so that the mysterious powers of the American consul 
at St. Kentigern had been evoked to punish mutiny- 
on the one hand, and battery and starvation on 
the other, both equally attested by manifestly false 
witnesses and subordination on each side. In the 
exercise of his functions, the consul had opened and 
shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the 
usual sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag 
was now flying, on a final visit, from the stern 
sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a 
feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he 
at last lifted his head above an atmosphere of perjury 
and bilge water, and came on deck. The sun and 
wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening 
river beyond the ' measured mile ; ' a few gulls were 
wavering and dipping near the lee scuppers, and 
the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a dis- 
tance that secured immunity of conscience, came 
peacefully." 

Presently he heard an altercation between pretty 
Ailsa Callender's tough old father, and the boatman 
who had brought them from shore to say farewell 
to a passenger on The Skyscraper, the oarsman 
being now inclined to demand an extra fee for return- 
ing with them. 

" The boatman alleged that he had been detained 
beyond ' kirk time,' and that this imperilling of his 
salvation could only be compensated by another 

243 



THE CONSUL 

shilling. To the consul's surprise, this extra- 
ordinary argument was recognised by the father, 
who, however, contented himself by simply contend- 
ing that it had not been stipulated in the bargain. 
The issue was, therefore, limited, and the discussion 
progressed slowly and deliberately with a certain 
calm dignity and argumentative satisfaction on both 
sides that exalted the subject, though it irritated 
the captain. ' If ye accept the premisses that I've 
just laid down, that it's a contract,' began the 
boatman. ' Dry up and haul off,' said the captain. 

" ' One moment,' interposed the consul, addressing 
the father, ' Will you allow me to offer you and 
your daughter a seat in my boat ? . . .' 

" ' It'll be costin' ye no more ? ' said the old 
Scotchman, ' or ye'll be asking me a fair proportion.' 

" Being reassured on this point, he added — ' Ay, 
but it's a preenciple, and I'm pleased, sir, to see 
ye recognise it.' 

" And then as an exordium for the benefit of 
the baffled boatman, still lying on his oars, he 
concluded — 

" ' Let this be a lesson to ye, ma frien', when 
ye're ower sure ! Ye'll ne'er say a herrin' is dry 
until it be reestit an' recket.' 

" As they pulled across the Clyde (surely St. 
Kentigern was very close to Glasgow !), the consul 
said — for his passengers had missed the train by 
which they had intended to return home — 

" ' There's an excursion boat coming round the 

244 



THE CONSUL 

Point, and it will be returning to St. Kentigern 
shortly. If yon like, we'll pull over and put you 
aboard.' 

" ' Eh ! but it's the Sabbath-breaker,' said the 
old man harshly. 

" The consul suddenly remembered that that was 
the name which the righteous St. Kentigerners had 
given to the solitary bold bad pleasure-boat that 
defied their Sabbatical observances. 

" ' Perhaps you won't find very pleasant company 
on board,' said the consul, smiling ; ' but then you're 
not seeking that. And as you would be only using 
the boat to get back to your home, and not for 
Sunday recreation, I don't think your conscience 
should trouble you.' 

" ' Ay, that's a fine argument, Mr. Consul, but 
I'm thinking it's none the less sopheestry for a' 
that,' said the father grimly. 

" ' No ; if ye'U just land us yonder at Bannock 
pier we'll be aye thankin' ye the same,' " 

The American Consul at St. Kentigern's did 7cot 
tell his passengers that the American Consul at Glas- 
gow — one Mr. Bret Harte — was a constant patron of 
the Sabbath-breaker, and thereby caused much un- 
easiness to those who desired him to spend the seventh 
day in their own austere way. He was a discreet 
consul, and no doubt he wished to stand well in the 
beautiful brown eyes of pretty Ailsa Callender, as 
sweet and winsome a Scotch lassie as ever limned 

by writer — aye even by the master hand of William 

245 



THE CONSUL 

Black, In the following passage Glasgow is un- 
deniably revealed : — 

" The December fog that overhung St, Kentigern 
had thinned sufficiently to permit the passage of a 
few large snowflakes, soiled in their descent, until in 
colour and consistency they spotted the steps of the 
Consulate and the umbrellas of the passers by like 
sprinklings of grey mortar. Nevertheless, the consul 
thought the streets preferable to the persistent gloom 
of his office, and sallied out. Youthful mercantile St. 
Kentigern strode sturdily past him in the lightest 
covert coats ; collegiate St, Kentigern fluttered by 
in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs that 
defended his more exotic blood ; and the bare feet of 
a few factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders 
were draped and hooded in thick shawls, filled him 
with a keen sense of his effeminacy. Everything 
of earth, air, and sky, and even the faces of those he 
looked upon, seemed to be set in the hard, patient en- 
durance of the race. Everywhere on that dismal day 
he fancied he could see this energy without restless- 
ness, this earnestness without geniality, all grimly set 
against the hard environment of circumstance and 
weather," 

In "A Rose of Glenbogie " there is another finely 

drawn cabinet picture of Scotch character, and the 

impression it made on the American mind. The 

Consul of St, Kentigern is standing on the lonely 

platform of Whistlecrankie station waiting for an 

expected carriage, when he finds himself in the com- 

246 



THE CONSUL 

panyofa railway porter. "He was a hard-featured 
man, with a thin fringe of yellow-grey whiskers 
under his chin like dirty strings to tie his cap on 
with. 

*' ' Ye'll be going to " Glenbogie House," I'm think- 
in',' he said moodily. 

" The consul said he was. 

" ' I kenned it. Ye'll be no gettin' any machine to 
tak' ye there. They'll be sending a carriage for ye — 
if ye're expected.'' He glanced half doubtfully at the 
consul as if he was not quite so sure of it. 

" The consul explained that he was expected, 
and then the porter surveyed him gloomily and 
remarked — 

" ' Ye'll be seein' Mistress MacSpadden there ! ' 

" The consul was surprised into a little over con- 
sciousness. Mrs. MacSpadden was a vivacious ac- 
quaintance at St. Kentigern, whom he certainly — and 
not without some satisfaction — expected to meet at 
Glenbogie House. He raised his eyes inquiringly to 
the porter's. 

" ' Ye'll be no remembering me. I had a machine 
in St. Kentigern and drove ye to MacSpadden's often. 
Far, far, too often 1 She's a strange, flagrantitious 
creature ; her husband's but a puir fule, I'm thinkin', 
and ye did yersel' nae guid gaunin' there.' 

" It was a besetting weakness of the consul's that 

his sense of the ludicrous was too often reached before 

his more serious perceptions. The absurd combination 

of the bleak, inhospitable desolation before him, and 

247 



THE CONSUL 

the sepulchral complacency of his self-elected monitor, 
quite upset his gravity. 

" ' Ay, ye'll be laughin' the noo,' returned the porter, 
with gloomy significance. 

" The consul wiped his eyes. ' Still,' he said 
demurely, ' I trust you won't object to my giving 
you sixpence to carry my box to the carriage when 
it comes, and let the morality of this transaction 
devolve entirely upon me. Unless,' he continued even 
more gravely as a spic-and-span brougham, drawn by 
two thoroughbreds, dashed out of the mist up to the 
platform, ' unless you prefer to state the case to those 
two gentlemen ' — pointing to the smart coachman and 
footman on the box — ' and take their opinion as to 
the propriety of my proceeding any further. It seems 
to me that their consciences ought to be consulted 
as well as yours. I'm only a stranger here, and 
am willing to do anything to conform to the local 
custom.' 

" ' It's a saxpence ye'll be pay in' anyway,' said 
the porter grimly, ' but I'll be no taking any other 
mon's opinion on matters of my ain dooty and 
conscience.' 

" ' Ah,' said the consul gravely, ' then you'll per- 
haps be allowing me the same privilege.' 

" The porter's face relaxed, and a gleam of approval 
— purely intellectual however — came into his eyes. 

" ' Ye were always a smooth deevil wi' your tongue, 

Mr. Consul,' he said, shouldering the box and walking 

off to the carriage." 

248 



THE CONSUL 

And yet people 'exist who declare, and apparently 
believe, that Bret Harte could only write about the 
early Californians ! 

He thus describes the drive to Glenbogie House : — 

" The clattering of his horses' hoofs echoed back 
from the rocky walls that occasionally hemmed in the 
road was not enlivening, but it was less depressing 
than the recurring monotony of the open. The scenery 
did not suggest wildness to his alien eyes so much as 
it affected him with a vague sense of scorbutic impover- 
ishment. It was not the loneliness of unfrequented 
Nature, for there was a well - kept carriage road 
traversing its dreariness ; and even when the hillside 
was clothed with scanty verdure, there were ' out- 
crops ' of smooth, glistening, weather-worn rocks 
showing like bare brown knees under the all too 
imperfectly-kilted slopes." 

This was a favourite simile with Bret Harte, and 
he would laughingly declare that he was convinced 
that the Highlander had made his surroundings the 
pattern for the national costume — the curtailed kilt 
and the exposed knees. 

He was rather apt to depreciate the beauties of 

Scotch scenery, but that was only when he thought 

they were over extolled by those who had never seen 

the grandeur of California. In his heart of heart he 

loved Scotland well, and its historical associations 

were a source of unfailing delight to him. 

I fear he was not considered to be a very perfect 

Consul. As we have seen, his friends often lured him 

249 



THE CONSUL 

to London, and now that he was once more busy with 
his pen it engrossed much of his time. In one of his 
letters to Sir Wemyss Reid, Wilham Black said : 
" Bret Harte was to have been back from Paris last 
night, but he is a wandering comet. The only place 
he is sure not to be found in is at the Glasgow Con- 
sulate." Reports of these things naturally reached 
America, and possibly it was thought that the duties 
of the Glasgow Consulate might be more happily ful- 
filled by one who did not happen to be an exceedingly 
popular author. 

Mr. Noah Brooks says : — 

"It is related that while he was still ' holding 
over' into the administration of a democratic presi- 
dent, that functionary, accompanied by his private 
secretary, Mr. Daniel Lamont, fishing in an Adiron- 
dack lake, took up a copy of the New York Sun, on 
which to dry his hands, and, catching sight of Harte's 
name at the head of a short story, fell to reading it, 
and never left it until he had finished it.'^ Tossing 
the paper overboard, he asked Lamont if the story- 
writer were not a Consul of the United States some- 
where ; and, receiving an affirmative answer, he said : 
' Well, be sure and remind me to have him removed 
^when we get back to Washington.' The tale cannot 
be verified, but Harte was removed in 1885, and 
thereafter, to the day of his death, he made his home 
in London." 

1 Many of his new stories were at this time printed in American news- 
papers and periodicals. 

250 



THE CONSUL 

Concerning the life that opened to him there, and 
his manner of using it, I cannot do better than quote 
the following lines, written ten years later, by Madame 
Van de Velde, for the Neiv York Sun : — 

"It is difficult for an observant stranger to pass 
even a short time in Great Britain without becoming 
aware of a distinctively characteristic trait in the 
inhabitants ; and it is impossible for any one who has 
lived a number of years there not to be absolutely 
convinced of its dominance. The Englishman, in his 
cold, undemonstrative fashion, is intensely patriotic ; 
in his heart of hearts he firmly believes that in the 
scheme of creation he was formed out of special clay, 
while the remainder of human beings have been 
moulded from a much inferior material. He is equally 
sure that no eifort of grace can ever raise the alien to 
his own level ; but while he is piously grateful for 
this dispensation of Providence, he recognises and 
appreciates the right of the outsider to maintain an 
exalted opinion of his own country and nationality ; 
he respects him for it even when he endeavours to 
prove it erroneous ; nay, more, should his arguments 
successfully establish a recognition of his own supe- 
riority, he immediately ceases to entertain regard and 
toleration for the too easily persuaded stranger. This 
thoroughly English and so far honourable peculiarity 
is one of the reasons, apart from his merits as a lite- 
rary celebrity, why Bret Harte is extremely popular 
in England, and has always been so. 

" Before he took up his residence in London his 

251 



THE CONSUL 

genius and originality had won him admirers, but 
when he gave them the opportunity of becoming 
acquainted with the man, independently, as it were, 
of the author, they promptly ascertained that no 
more uncompromising American had ever set foot 
among them. Time has not dulled Bret Harte's 
instinctive affection for the land of his birth, for its 
institutions, its climate, its natural beauties, and, 
above all, the character and moral attributes of its 
inhabitants. Even his association with the most 
aristocratic representatives of London society has 
been impotent to modify his views or to win him 
over to less independent professions. He is as single- 
minded to-day as he was when he first landed on 
British soil. A general favourite in the most diverse 
circles, social, literary, scientific, artistic, or military, 
his strong primitive nature and his positive indi- 
viduality have remained intact. Always polite and 
gentle, neither seeking nor evading controversy, he 
is steadfastly unchangeable in his political and patriotic 
beliefs. He has frequently been heard to express 
himself frankly on the vexed question of Anglo- 
American marriages, severely satirising those of his 
fair compatriots who, dazzled by the lustre of lordly 
alliances, have too closely assimilated with the land 
of their adoption, and apparently forgotten their own 
country. To such he has not hesitated to apply the 
term of ' apostates.' 

" Bret Harte has maintained in his maturity the 

complete simplicity of maimer which, coupled with 

252 



THE CONSUL 

extreme refinement of thought and speech, so deeply- 
impressed those he met on his first arrival in England. 
Nor is it inconsistent with the distinct personality 
revealed in his writings, however dissimilar the man 
of the world must necessarily be to the creator of 
stirring romances, which frequently are but the 
records of personal experience. Yet it has been 
several times remarked that the appearance of Bret 
Harte does not coincide with the preconceived expec- 
tations of his readers. They had formed a vague, 
intangible idea of a wild, reckless Californian, impatient 
of social trammels, whose life among the Argonauts 
must have fashioned him after a type difiering widely 
from the reality. These idealists were partly disap- 
pointed, partly relieved, when their American visitor 
turned out to be a quiet, low-voiced, easy-mannered, 
polished gentleman, who smilingly confessed that pre- 
cisely because he had roughed it a good deal in his 
youth he was inclined to enjoy the comforts and avail 
himself of the facilities of an older civilisation, when 
placed within his reach. He also gently intimated 
that days on the top of a stage coach, or on the back 
of a mustang, and nights spent at poker, would not 
materially assist in the writing of the stories which 
are never produced fast enough to meet the demand. 

" Bret Harte has persistently declined to be inter- 
viewed, and as the name of the professional reporters 
is legion, we dare say his refusal to receive them 
may have made him some enemies. But when, in 

a moment of good nature, he yielded to pressing 

253 



THE CONSUL 

solicitations and allowed himself to be questioned, 
the consequences were, on the whole, to his disad- 
vantage. From that moment the door has been 
opened to a flood of apocryphal statements of vari- 
ous length and importance : sometimes entirely false, 
sometimes tinged with a dangerous verisimilitude ; 
often grotesque, occasionally malicious, but one and 
all purporting to be derived from unquestionable 
sources. Thus the American humorist has been re- 
presented as sinking into the slough of sybaritic 
idleness ; as working five hours before breakfast and 
recruiting by violent pedestrian exercise ; he changed 
his clothes six times a day ; he neglected his personal 
appearance ; he had taken a big mansion in Norfolk 
and entertained on a large scale ; he had hidden 
himself in a small cottage in the suburbs ; he filled 
waste-paper baskets with torn notes of invitation ; 
he wrote sheets and sheets of ' copy ; ' society women 
booked him months ahead to secure his presence at 
their receptions ; he made thousands of pounds a 
year ; he had ceased to write at all ; he had become 
' quite English, you know,' and had formally abjured 
America. 

" Singularly enough, many of Bret Harte's country- 
men in London did not take the trouble to verify 
these statements ; they accepted them blindly, and 
thus they may have been reproduced in some Ameri- 
can newspapers together with the account of the last 
debut of a brilliant New York belle in London, or 

the detailed description of some millionaire's festival. 

254 



THE CONSUL 

" When this mass of silly gossip is sifted the bare 
and simple truth remains that Bret Harte leads a 
quiet, simple, dignified, and useful existence ; that 
he goes into society less than any other conspicuous 
American living in London ; that he never threw 
over the humblest of his acquaintances for the highest 
or richest ; that he is ever ready to oblige or assist a 
compatriot; that he faithfully and perse veringly devotes 
a portion of each day to his profession ; and that 
he often has not known how his health and strength 
would enable him to meet the many engagements 
thrust upon him by publishers and editors. 

" It has been said that Bret Harte's stories fetch 
bigger prices in the market than any similar form 
of literature of the present day. This is perhaps 
correct, but he does not consider himself justified 
on that account in relaxing his labours. He has 
obligations in America, and this claim upon him forms 
at once the motive and the reason of his prolonged 
stay in England, in spite of the inclination and desire 
so strong in his heart to revisit his native land. 

" Bret Harte has more than once been asked to 
lecture in England on English customs and English 
society, but he has always demurred. He is too 
grateful for the welcome tendered to him to risk 
repaying it with the apparent discourtesy of censure ; 
he is too honest and frank to give indiscriminate 
praise or to lay himself open to the reproach of 
flattery. Some day he may be persuaded to give 
the world the result of close, keen, and impartial 

^55 



THE CONSUL 

observation ; and we dare say he will do so in the 
spirit of conscientiousness and sincerity so charac- 
teristic of all his writings. 

" When the day comes at last on which Bret 
Harte,' after a long period of fruitful labours, realises 
his ardent wish of revisiting America ; when New 
York and San Francisco hail his return, and the 
whole nation opens its arms to its long absent and 
distinguished son, the friends he has made in the 
old country will not forget him ; and we are sure 
he will remember how they have cheered the time 
of his self-imposed exile, and how honestly patriotic 
Englishmen can care for a truly patriotic American." 

How true all this is Bret Harte's English friends 
know. He was truly an " American worthy of the 
Flag ; " he never failed to uphold it, and it is intensely 
sad to think that his premature death crushed his 
cherished wish to revisit his native land. 



256 



CHAPTER VII 

IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

Bret Harte truly loved the theatre, and but for 

I the fact that the demand for his stories fully occupied 

his time, he would have done much more work as a 

; playwright than that associated with his name. He 

deplored it, but no writer worked harder than he, 

and it could not be helped. His one great personal 

effort as a dramatist was the four-act play entitled 

J^ " Two Men of Sandy Bar," in which Mr. Stuart 

Bobson, the admirable comedian for whom it was 

written, appeared as Colonel Starbottle, one of the 

best as well as one of the most popular of the author's 

creations. John Oakhurst, the gambler ; Hop Sing, a 

Chinese laundryman ; a Spanish Don, and a charming 

Dona, with other of his best known characters were 

also pressed into the service ; the various scenes and the 

costumes gave every opportunity for picturesque stage 

treatment, and when the drama was ready for curtain 

rise all promised well. As this is the only produced 

play that bore the name of Bret Harte as its sole 

author, it is interesting to show a copy of the now 

almost forgotten playbill that heralded it. 

257 , R 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

PROGRAMME. 

UNION SQUARE THEATRE, 
New York, September ist, 1876. 



Proprietor .... Mr. Sheridan Shook. 
Manager .... Mr. A. M. Palmer. 

This and Every Evening and at the Saturday Matinees, until 

further notice, an Original American Comedy Drama, in 

4 acts, written by Mr. Bret Harte, and entitled — 

TWO MEN OF SANDY BAR. 

Col. Culpepper Starhottle (legal adviser ^ 

of Mr. Morton Sr. ; " Responsible, VMr. Stuart Robson 
personally responsible ") . . ) 



Mr. Theodore Hamilton 
Mr. H. S. Murdoch 
Mr. H. F. Daly 



Mr. T. E. Morris 

Mr. H. W. Montgomery 
Mr. C. T. Parsloe 
Mr. Lysander Thompson 
I Mr, Quigley 



John Oahhurst .... 
Sandy Morton .... 
Don Jose Castro .... 
Alexander Morton Sr. (in search of the 

"Prodigal") .... 
Concho (Major Domo) . 
Hop Sing (Chinese Laundryman) . 
Pritchard (an Australian Convict) 

-^^^^^^"^ I (his Pals) . . . .s ^ ^^.„ 

Silhy i ^ ' I Mr. Wilkes 

Jackson (Confidential Clerk of Morton ) •,«- , 

o, 1 ^M <. 1 , J. -r> -J. 1 j\ ( Mr. John Mathews 

Sr. and Confederate of Pritchard) j 

Capper (a Policeman) .... Mr. W. H. Wilder 

Servant Mr. H. Ay ling 

Miss Mary Morris (School-mistress of \ 

Sandy Bar, in love with Sandy, and ^ Miss Mary Carey 

cousin of Alexander Morton Sr.) . ' 

(By courtesy of Manager, R. M. Field of Boston Museum.) 

The Duchess (wife of Pritchard, illegally j 

married to Sandy, and former >Miss Ida Vernon 
" flame " of John Oakhurst) . . / 

258 



m AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

Donna Jovita Castro (in love with John ) 

Oakhurst) I Miss Laura Don 

Mannela (Servant of Don Jos6, and 
maid of Donna Jovita) . 

Vaqueros, Male and Female Attendants, &c 



> Miss Maud Harrison 



The Scenery which is all new has been painted by Mr. George 
Heister, from designs furnished by Mr. Richard Marston. 
It comprises the following : — 

Act I. — The Rancho of the Blessed Innocents, and House of 

Don Jose Castro. 
Act //.—The Gulch of Sandy Bar. 
Act III. — Banking House of Alexander Morton Sr. 
Act IV. — The Villa of Alexander Morton Sr. near San Francisco, 

with distant view of the city by moonlight. 



The Music is entirely original, and is by Mr. H. Tissington. 

Unfortunately the New York critics dealt very 
severely with the piece, and, much to Bret Harte's 
annoyance, unkind stories got afloat to the effect 
that Mr. Robson was sore with regard to the high 
price he had paid for it. How unfair this was is 
proved by the following letter from actor to author. 

" The Arlington, Washington, 
" Octoher 6, 1876. 

" My dear Bret, — You will be glad to hear 

that we are doing an excellent business, and that 

John T. Ford predicts even greater success in 

Baltimore. The papers are enthusiastic in praise of 

the play, and altogether I am well satisfied. Will 

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IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

you credit me with the fact that I have never lost 
faith in my venture ? . . . The Washington papers 
have certainly treated us well, which, after the many 
misrepresentations made of the play, is most 
gratifying. — Believe me, your friend truly, 

Stuart Robson." 

This generous letter consoled the vexed dramatist, 
but he never quite forgot the sting of the adverse criti- 
cisms, and the false innuendoes, and I think that is 
why he preferred story-telling to play-writing. 

A number of familiar episodes in his early works 
found place in " Two Men of Sandy Bar," but the 
backbone of the play was an elaboration of Mr. 
Thompson's " Prodigal," which, as readers know, is 
full of strong situations. In its dramatic form 
humour and pathos alternated, and it makes delight- 
ful reading, but for acting purposes it had its faults. 
It was too full of good things, and Dion Boucicault 
told the author that it contained material for half-a- 
dozen plays. This was true, and another fault was 
that the admirably written dialogue was too much 
drawn out for the theatre. Writers of narrative 
often forget that the stage requires action rather 
than description, and that playgoers are apt to resent 
long speeches which in a book would be acceptable. 

" Two Men of Sandy Bar " was by no means a 

failure, but it did not gain permanent popularity. 

That Bret Harte rightly thought well of it is proved 

by the fact that he had it published in his collected 

260 




The Itrd JIiiH.tf, ('(iiiihtrli'i/. Surrfi/. The liniist' in irh'uh ISrrt Hurtf died. 

[To face p. 200. 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

works. He was far too sensitive to print anything 
that did not find favour in his own eyes. 

It will be noticed in the playbill that the part of 
Hop Sing, the Chinese laundryman, was played by 
Mr. C. T. Parsloe. This impersonation was so warmly 
welcomed that, in conjunction with Mark Twain, 
Bret Harte wrote a play entitled " Ah Sin," in which 
a Chinaman formed the central figure. With Mr. 
Parsloe in the name part it was produced in New 
York, but it did not attract lasting attention. 

This, according to the disappointed playwright's 
way of looking at things, was another rebuff; but 
he must have tried his hand again, for among his 
papers was found a letter from Dion Boucicault (on 
whose opinion concerning dramatic work he placed 
absolute reliance), to whom he had evidently sub- 
mitted some new play. 

This unswerving faith in the judgment of the 
author of " London Assurance " and " The Colleen 
Bawn " was, I think, somewhat against him. He forgot 
that such plays were written for a bygone generation, 
and that the playgoers of to-day not only demand other 
fare, but desire that it shall be served up to them 
in far different fashion. But to the last he always 
quoted Boucicault as his great stage authority, though 
he sincerely admired the more subtle art of Pinero. 

Here is the letter : — 

" My dear Harte, — I have been held by a suit, 

which stood for trial yesterday ; and by sticking to 

261 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

my counsel for three days, I so arranged that the 
' other side ' consented to a verdict in my favour. 

" This has been a great reUef to my mind. It 
is over. But this is the cause of my delay in attend- 
ing to your play, which I have read this morning. 

" First : I like it very much, especially the Second 
Act. You will find some pencil notes which I have 
ventured to make. At least they will j)rove the 
interest I took in my pleasant task. 

" May I venture to say the melodramatic incidents 
in Act 3 might be arranged to accord better in tone 
with the first two acts ? 

" I don't care for Lady Washington. 

" I fancy Paulding could be erected into a typical 
* continental ' of the period, and might pervade the 
piece. 

" Van Zanot might be made a Virginian who 
had been, previous to the war, in the regular English 
service. 

" I fear the patriotic apostrophes are somewhat 
out of date, though quite appropriate at that 
time. 

" The enthusiasm for France might jar on an 
English audience, and is not absolutely necessary. 

" The national harangue might be given to Pauld- 
ing, whose eagle spread would be characteristic, and 
might be made sincere and grotesque at the same 
time. 

" Perhaps you will say I am so, therefore I will 

shut up. — Ever yours, Dion Boucicault." 

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IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

Then there comes a second note, and it concerned 
that second act of which approval had previously 
been expressed : — 

" My dear Harte, — Will you read this second 
act — see my notes. Tell me what you think. They 
entail considerable work, but it seems to me necessary. 

" My work now is very incessant, and I have 
family cares that occupy me, so have been unable 
to get time to visit you. — Yours sincerely, 

Dion Boucicault." 

I suppose that troublesome second act disheartened 

the author. Be that as it may, the piece was never 

seen, and though when we were writing plays together 

he talked to me very fully of his theatrical experiences 

he never mentioned it. As a dramatist on his own 

account he seemed to lack confidence, and was prone 

to take the opinion of men whose judgment was not 

really as keen as his own. Of course, as a popular 

author, he was pestered by pirated stage versions 

of his stories, and he was maddened when he heard 

that his beautiful " Mliss " had, in his own country, 

been converted into a commonplace " song and dance " 

play, a form of entertainment that he loathed. The 

worst of it was that, not only was his name inevitably 

associated with the production, but that, owing to 

the popularity of the sprightly lady. Miss Annie 

Pixley, who was the Mliss of the stage (such a 

different Mliss from that of the story), it became a 

263 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

great success. It was performed, to Bret Harte's 
infinite distress, hundreds and hundreds of times. In 
America he seemed unable to put a stop to the piracy, 
but when its production in England was threatened 
he took legal advice, and was happily able to nip it 
in the bud. 

But the episode evidently set him thinking that 
" Mliss " contained the material for a play of the right 
kind, and, in conjunction with his friend, Mr. Joseph 
Hatton, he made an adaptation of it. Of this work 
the latter well-known novelist, dramatist, and jour- 
nalist has said : — 

" I knew Bret Harte intimately, admired his work, 
and cherished a real affection for him. I have treas- 
ured memories of many a pleasant Sunday afternoon, 
in which he was a visitor at my house, and of some 
work done in collaboration with him, out of which 
we extracted a great deal of pleasure, though the 
play still lies on my shelves unacted. One day, as 
he seemed to be watching the smoke of his cigar 
over a cup of coftee after luncheon, he said : ' I should 
like to have time to write a long poem.' I forget 
whether he said a great poem, but I think he only 
said ' a long poem.' He meant that he would like 
to have time to do his very best in an important 
and sustained effort. Later, as we chatted in the 
same direction — the things one would like to do if 
one were not obliged to keep on doing something 
else — he added, ' I should prefer of all my attempts 

at play writing to have this drama of ours produced.' 

264 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

It was ' Mliss/ in the dramatisation of which he 
carried on his story into the later lives of those 
two fascinating people, Mliss and the Schoolmaster. 
The play was written for a very young actress, and 
was to have been produced under an enterprising 
London manager, who, however, insisted upon first 
presenting ' The Prince and the Pauper,' and so our 
opportunity fell to the ground." 

The " very young actress " was Miss Bessie 
Hatton, and she would have played Mliss charm- 
ingly. The part of the Schoolmaster was designed 
for Mr. E. S. Willard. It should have suited him 
well. I never could understand why that lost oppor- 
tunity was not regained. It is sad to think that 
a play over which two experts spent time and pains 
should lie forgotten on the shelf. 

Mliss was no doubt one of Bret Harte's favourite 
" brain " children, but he never thought she was 
rightly understood by English readers. Edwin Long, 
R.A., painted a picture of the winsome maiden. 
" Yes," said " her parent " when he saw it, "a beau- 
tiful picture, but not my Mliss ; it is the child of 
an English village, not the wild daughter of old 
Bummer Smith." 

Speaking of this incident Mr. Hatton says : — 
" I expect the painter should have seen the en- 
vironment of something like Smith's Pocket before 
he could quite understand Mliss, though Bret Harte 
drew her picture in his graphic way : a young girl, 

dirtily and shabbily clad, great black eyes, coarse, 

265 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

uncombed, lustreless hair falling over her sunburned 

face, red arms and feet, streaked with the red soil ; 

such was Melissa Smith — Smith's ' motherless child.' 

The soul of the figure, the life and spirit, the courage, ^ 

the nobility of the untutored nature he revealed to 

you with rare simplicity of diction and quaint illus- 1 

tration. It was necessary that Bret Harte should j| 

confide to me all he knew and imagined about the l^ 

characters in his story, otherwise it was as difficult 

to get him to unburden himself concerning his work, t 

his inspiration, and his methods as it would be to .i 

' draw ' Swinburne upon his. . . . You can under- ij 

stand what a delight it was to me to hear from Bret J 

Harte's own lips all about Mliss and her father ^j 

Bummer Smith ; the schoolmaster and his financial li 

troubles ; the San Francisco banker ; M'Snagley, over . 

whose grotesquely humorous hypocrisy we had many t\ 

a laugh ; and the Bonebreaker, whom Bret Harte \ 

loved, I think, as dearly as he loved Mliss herself. 

I remember how he impressed upon me that the 

dress of Bonebreaker and his comrades had nothing 

in common with the American cowboy's attire, nor 

was in the least like the typical miner in slouch hat 

and red shirt. I have somewhere an approved sketch i 

in colour of the miner of the Sierra Nevada and the 

region of Smith's Pocket — it was that of a picturesque 

Mexican vaquero. To listen to Bret Harte as he 

expanded the story of Mliss, her father's ultimate 

discovery of the gold, Cly tie's intrigues against her 

rival, and what happened to Mliss and her lover, 

266 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

was to experience something of the aesthetic and selfish 
pleasure of the king who had a theatre to himself — 
he the only auditor, with Wagner as his author and 
manager. He was voted mad, but there was a 
splendid method in his madness. To know all about 
Mliss and what might have been the result of her 
educational training, and her future as the heiress 
of Bummer Smith on the accidental and wonderful 
realisation of his dearest hopes, is to me a romantic, 
though pathetic possession." 

When it became my great good fortune to col- 
laborate with Bret Harte in stage-work, I felt just 
as Mr. Hatton did. It was more than a privilege 
to hear him talk his heart out and to note the 
expressions on his face as the new ideas flashed into 
his mind. But he was very apt to grow despondent 
about our projects. Scenes and situations about 
which he had been enthusiastic in the evening often 
struck him in the morning as spiritless and dull. If 
he had been left to himself he would have put away 
the work half finished. 

The stealing of his plots for stage purposes in 
America continued to annoy him, and that his friends 
there did their best to look after his interests is shown 
by this letter : — 

" New York Hotel, New York, 
^^ January 22, 1884. 

" My dear Harte, — Here is a short paragraph 

from the Tribune of this morning, and a stronger 

and longer one from a cent paper here. 

267 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

" But I'm still so certain that you are being 
imposed upon in your absence from the country in 
this matter that I am impelled to again write to 
you, and I send you these clippings so that you 
may know what is going on. If the play is done 
with your permission let me know and it shall have 
better mention, as anything with your eminent name 
should have ; and if not with your permission, but 
is stolen, let me know also, and I shall so inform 
our fellow-scribes. — Yours, 

Joaquin Miller." 

But it was of no avail. Nothing could be done 
to stop the filchers of ideas, and the creator of them 
could only writhe under his wrongs. A particularly 
exasperating incident was a very badly done stage 
version of " Gabriel Conroy." The bandit adapter 
never said a word to the author about it, never 
offered him a cent of the profits of the production. 

Fancy his anger when he read this criticism of 
his most ambitious and, I think, his favourite 
story : — 

" Gabriel Conroy. 

" Mr, and Mrs. Kee Bankin produced their {sic !) 

new play ' Gabriel Conroy,' at the Third Avenue 

Theatre last night. As is generally known this 

play is an adaptation of Bret Harte's story of the 

same title, and the thread of narrative is the same 

in both. The adaptation, we believe, is the work 

268 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

of Mr. W. S. Andrews, although the author is 
not indicated by the programmes, and there is a 
strong probabiHty that Mr. Rankin himself did a 
great deal of the work. The play is in a Prologue 
and four Acts, the former being entirely superfluous 
and highly ridiculous. The chief fault to be found 
with the work is that it lacks dramatic purpose and 
dramatic action. It is a pretty little story, but 
the climaxes are few and the incidents are amusing 
rather than stirring. There is little motive for 
the action, and the opportunities for strong acting 
are few." 

This was pretty reading for an author who 
knew that his book was full of strong dramatic 
situations, firmly drawn, well-knit characters, and 
everything needed for stage effect. He had in- 
tended to adapt it for the theatre himself, and now 
that dream had to be banished. His title had been 
used, and his plot described as amusing rather than 
stirring — " a pretty little story," lacking dramatic pur- 
pose and dramatic action. No wonder he was angry, 
and, what was far worse, deeply mortified. But 
there was nothing to do but to bear it, and pray 
for the days when authors' rights will be properly 
protected. 

In the early days of 1895 I read, in the pages 

of the Pall Mall Magazine, his story, " The Judgment 

of Bolinas Plain." Seeing in it great dramatic 

possibilities, I asked him if he would permit me to 

adapt it to the stage. He readily assented, but, 

269 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

at the same time, said that he thought I was 
mistaken in my view of his work and that my hours 
would be wasted. When I sent him my scenario, 
however, he at once saw how his slender story, by 
the introduction of other characters, and the putting 
into action of things only hinted at or suggested in 
the narrative, might be made into a three-act play. 
Indeed he was so delighted that he expressed a 
wish to write it with me. To this, of course, I more 
than readily agreed, and many happy days were 
^spent over the composition and completion of 
" Sue." 

It was accepted by Mr. Charles Frohman, and 
presented by him in New York on September 15, 
1896. Neither of us could be there, and on the 
eve of the production of the play Bret Harte grew 
very anxious as to its fate. On the following day 
I was able to reassure him with a comforting cable- 
gram from the management which ran as follows : 
" Well received. Fine acting. Press praises." Hav- 
ing exhausted her time in New York, " Sue " was 
taken on a prolonged tour throughout the States ; 
and everywhere Miss Annie Russell made a triumph 
as Bret Harte's tenderly drawn little heroine of 
Bolinas Plain. 

On June 10, 1898, Mr. Frohman produced the 
play at the Garrick Theatre, London. On that occa- 
sion Bret Harte and I were present, and it was 
pleasant to witness his delight in the perfect way 

in which, by one and all concerned in it, the piece 

270 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

was acted, and how every line seemed to go home 
to the hearts of a crowded and distinguished audience. 
Its artistic success in its EngUsh home was im- 
mediately secured, and Miss Annie Russell by the 
force, humour, and pathos of her acting moved the 
house in no ordinary way. The subsequent judgment 
of the critics was as gratifying to her as it was 
to the writers of the play. How much they owed 
to her charming personality, and her deft handling 
of a difficult part they freely and gratefully ac- 
knowledged. 

During the many pleasant hours of our collabora- 
tion I had ample opportunity for studying his 
working methods. Infinite painstaking, I soon 
learned, was the essence of his system. Of altering 
and realtering he was never tired, and though, as 
I have hinted, it was sometimes a little disappointing 
to find that what we had considered as finished 
over - night had, at his desire, to be reconsidered 
in the morning, the humorous way in which he 
would point out how serious situations might, by a 
twist of the pen, or by incompetent acting, create 
derisive laughter, compensated for double or even 
treble work. That was my difficulty. He liked, 
as he had reason to like, his own pathetic story. He 
was anxious to see it on the stage ; but as the scenes 
and acts grew he would insist on pointing out to 
me how the most striking incidents in them might 
be burlesqued. No one realised more keenly than 

he did that to most things there is a comic as well 

271 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

as a serious side, and it seemed to make him vastly 
happy to put his finger on his own vulnerable 
spots. 

Here is a case in point. There was the usual 
difficulty in finding a title for the play that would * 
be both new and descriptive. In it poor Sue, a } 
girlish wife, is seen to be so misunderstood and ' 
neglected by her unkempt and selfish husband, Ira, I 
that she is tempted to leave him for the sake of ] 
a dazzling, light o' love acrobat. When the un- ,^ 
happy Ira recovers from his first fit of wild jealousy 
and anger, and realises what he has lost, he is j; 
willing to take her to his reawakened heart, and, pure i 
as when she left him, his stray dove flutters home. Ji 
It is a tender little story, and I was most anxious t 
to find the right name for it in its elaborated stage f 
form. A hundred suggestions were made and dis- 
carded, and I was growing quite worried about it. 
I suppose he noticed this, and wishing to make me 
laugh, he wrote : — j 

" My dear Pemberton, — Eureka ! The right \ 
title for the play is " Dies Irae ; or, Susan's Sunday j 
Out." It's appropriate, and, as far as I know, has I 
not been used before. But I trust to you to search 
the records. — Ever yours, Bret Harte." 

This was facetious, but unsatisfactory ; and then 

we boiled down our titles to the simple word, 

" Sue." 

272 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

The morning after the production of " Sue " at 
the Garrick Theatre I went early to his rooms at 
74 Lancaster Gate, and there found him at his soli- 
tary breakfast. But there was a pleased look upon 
his face. He was surrounded by the morning papers, 
and handing me The Daily Telegraph he said : "Kead 
what Clement Scott has written." They were cer- 
tainly words to rejoice his heart. 

" At last," said the critic, " we have dragged Bret 
Harte on to the stage, and to judge by the enthusiasm, 
the breathless interest and the copious tears shed 
over dear, delightful, womanly ' Sue,' the English 
public does not intend to part with the brilliant talent 
of this essentially dramatic writer. He must write 
more plays — he could not write a better one than 
' Sue ' — and, if we mistake not, Mr. Edgar Pemberton 
will be at his elbow to-day urging him to turn the 
wealth of his dramatic material to account, and to 
make stage fortunes out of some of the best short 
stories ever written, in recent years. We have always 
maintained that Bret Harte is a born dramatist. He 
possesses every gift for the art which he so strangely 
and unaccountably neglected. . . . No man ever lived 
during the last half century who has a keener scent 
for all that is dramatic and all that is beautiful in 
life ; no prose writer has better understood the rough, 
imperial justice of the miner and explorer ; no novelist 
has better expressed the beauty of woman's nature ; 
no artist has so impressed us with the dash of the 

brush, with a sketch, with an inspiration. We say 

273 s 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

to ourselves : ' Why was not Thackeray a dramatist ? ' 
There were reasons. He was analytical and philo- 
sophical. ' Why was not Charles Dickens a drama- 
tist ? ' Because he was too rich in dramatic suggestion 
and comic material. But there was no reason on 
earth why Bret Harte should not be a dramatist, 
or why this writer of short stories, direct, human, 
poetic, and fanciful, should not have been the most 
successful playwright in his time. The dramatic gift, 
the poetic gift, the realistic gift are seldom combined. 
But Bret Harte possesses them all. If any one wants 
a proof of this let him see ' Sue ' as acted yesterday. 
Alter the cast and the dramatic poet may suffer. 
But play it as it was played yesterday, and all 
London will flock to see it, because it is new, be- 
cause it is original, and because every line and beat 
of this simple romance rings true to nature. . . . For 
years past the stage has not seen so realistic a 
play as ' Sue ' — in its first act, its second act, and its 
Judge Lynch trial scene — and yet the audience de- 
part happy, contented, delighted, better for what 
they have seen." 

Thus encouraged we set to work again. He gave 
me as much time as he could spare from the incessant 
commissions for his stories, and in happy comradeship 
we wrote several other plays. These have yet to face 
the footlights. For one of them, a comedy in the j| 
possession of Mr. Arthur Bourchier, poor Bret Harte, ij 
only a short time before his death, approved of I 
the scene sketches and models that had been pre- '. 

274 ! 

i 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

pared under his supervision, and which await its 
production, 

Madame Yan de Velde also adapted his stories 
to the stage — notably a very pretty version of " A 
Blue Grass Penelope," which she entitled "A Frontier 
Penelope." This was wise, as few English people 
know that "Blue Grass" signifies the region of Blue 
Grass Meadow in Kentucky, famous for its grazing. 

A good many years ago, my friend, J. L, Toole, 
told me with manifest delight, that Bret Harte was 
writing a comedy for him, and said how proud he 
should be of association with his name. All promised 
well, and the piece (it was called " Furnished by 
Bunter") was written. It had an admirable lead- 
ing idea, and contained an excellent part for the 
popular comedian, but as a whole it did not satisfy 
its fastidious author, and it was put on one side. 
Bret Harte and Toole were great friends. The fol- 
lowing anecdote has been told before, but without it 
this chapter would not be complete. 

Thus the actor, who dearly loves an innocent 
practical joke, relates it : — 

" I had a curious experience in connection with 

St. Albans. I went there with a friend to spend an 

hour or two. Going into a tobacconist's to treat my 

friend to a cigar — I don't smoke myself — I asked for 

the cigars the Duke of St. Albans smoked. We 

went into other shops, and all the time asked for the 

same kind of goods they supplied to the Duke. 

" ' Lor' bless you,' they all said, ' the Duke doesn't 

275 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

deal here ; we never see the Duke.' Then we urged 

our expectation, our notion that the Duke lived here j 

and made a point of dealing with the local tradesmen. ; 

We got a good deal of harmless fun out of this, and 

next day I went to lunch with Bret Harte. After 

a greeting from my host, he said ' Let me introduce '! 

you to the Duke of St. Albans.' ' Oh yes,' I said, j! 

with a smile, and shook hands with the gentleman I 

who was assuming that character, as I thought. Of : 

course, I imagined my friend had told Bret Harte ^| 

about our trip to St. Albans, and the American [| 

humorist was having his little joke now at my *i 

expense. Then he introduced me to Sir George r 

Trevelyan ; and I had hardly shaken hands with [ 

that gentleman when my host said, ' I would like to i 

introduce you to Count Bismarck.' ' Oh yes,' I said, Ij 

bowing to the newcomer, ' how many more of you ' 

are there ? Where is Von Moltke, for instance ? ' 

Bret Harte laughed, so did Trevelyan ; a comedian 

is allowed certain privileges, and my remark was i 

considered, I daresay, more or less complimentary ; 

but I had no idea what a fool I was making of 

myself. At luncheon I said to the man who sat 

next me, ' Who is the gentleman Harte introduced 

me to as St. Albans ? ' ' The Duke of St. Albans,' 

he replied. ' And the man opposite ? ' ' Herbert 

Bismarck — the Prince's son.' ' No ! ' I said, ' really ? ' 

' Oh yes,' he said. ' And the man talking to him ? ' 

' That is Sir George Trevelyan.' I never was more 

sold in my life. Bret Harte had heard nothing 

276 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

of my trip to St. Albans. The explanation of my 
reception of the names of his distinguished guests, 
however, was a success, for I felt bound to tell his 
Grace and the rest why I had treated them with 
levity, not to say contumely." 

Poor Toole ! The memory of his fiasco evidently 
more or less haunted him, for later he wrote : — 

"Toole's Theatre, July 2, '84. 

" My dear Bret Harte, — With much pleasure 
I enclose box and four stalls for our mutual friends. — 
With kind regards, your friend, J. L. Toole. 

" P.S. — Come round at the end of ' The Pretty 
Horsebreaker ' and refresh. I dreamt about Bismarck 
the other night ! ! ! " 

Of course the essence of this note lies in the con- 
cluding words of its postscript. 

Bret Harte was a great admirer of the Gilbert- 
Sullivan operas, and as long ago as the first produc- 
tion of " H.M.S. Pma/bre," he told me that he should 
communicate with the composer with a view to pro- 
viding him with ar^ibretto. The matter drifted until 
the January of 1883 when a plot was submitted. 

" I have just returned from Paris," wrote Sir 
Arthur Sullivan. " Thanks for sending me your 
story, which I shall read to-night over the fire with 
a good cigar — complete enjoyment." 

But as will be seen this was another of the 

theatrical projects destined to fall to the ground. 

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IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

''Feb. 2, i884. 
" I Queen's Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W. 

" Dear Mr. Bret Harte, — You will, I am sure, 
believe that the delay in writing to you has not 
been intentional on my part. Since my illness I 
have had enough to do in picking up the dropped 
threads of work and correspondence, so that I could 
give little or no time to pleasant things. The 
scenario I return now, as I am going away for a 
little rest and change, and I should like to tell you 
that I am struck with the ingenuity you have dis- 
played in making so much that is interesting out 
of such slight material. In the hands of a good 
musician much might be done with it, although I 
doubt whether there is enough in it for three Acts. 
I think (this is of course only my own personal 
opinion) that it might with advantage be compressed 
into two with a change of scene in one of them if 
necessary, since once the idea is taken hold of the 
interest is difficult to sustain. 

" With regard to myself, I have come to the 
decision of not writing any more comic operas for 
some time to come, for I have resolved to devote 
myself now, if not entirely, at least in a great 
measure, to more earnest work. 

" I have rather come to the end of my tether 

in that line, and do not feel the same interest in 

writing that class of work that I did. There are 

younger men rising to whom I would gladly give the 

chance of gaining success in that field, and if I did 

278 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

yield to persuasion and write another, I should feel 
bound not to sever myself from my collaborateur, 
Gilbert. 

" You will therefore see the reason why / cannot 
set it to music. Did you know, by the way, that a 
piece called ' Dr. Ox ' on the same subject was produced 
at the Folly Theatre (now Toole's) some three or 
four years ago ? Violet Cameron played in it. I 
did not see it, but I to-day recollected the fact, and 
thought I would mention it to you. I like your 
niece. Miss Griswold, very much. She is a bright, 
clever girl, and will, I hope, take a high position 
in England. — Yours very sincerely, 

Arthur Sullivan." 

At that time Bret Harte was very interested in 
the musical career of his talented niece, and did 
everything in his power to promote its success. 

Gilbert and Sullivan must have been running very 
strongly in his mind when he wrote the following 
letter to one of his most intimate friends — Colonel 
Collins. 

" To Colonel Collins. 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., Tuesday. 

" Dear Arthur, — I may have to go out of town 
on Friday, but I'll let you know to-morrow. You 
really ought to see your doctor about those ' func- 
tional ' derangements ! 

" Meantime, thanks for the address of Smith, 

279 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

the author of a ' Wine full of Vinosity.' I think it 

awfully pretty, though I don't understand it, and 

it may not be good for a ' shady drink.' I am 

continually asking myself, in a kind of Gilbertian 

patter ! — 

' Is wine wWiout " vinosity " 
Like speed without velocity ? 
Or talk without verbosity ? 
Or rage without ferocity ? 
Or corns without callosity ? 
Or, — simply some atrocity 
Producing obeosity — 
This wine full of " vinosity " ? 

Chorus : — 

' Then, with some curiosity 
But no impetuosity. 
We'll sing with great jocosity. 
This wine full of vinosity ! ' 

Yours always. Beet Harte." 

He was ever an appreciative theatre goer, and 
on such occasions he loved to have Colonel Collins 
for his comrade. He always wanted sympathy, and 
in him he had a friend who understood him. Here 
is the sort of letter he would dash off when he 
found himself in possession of a free evening : — 

" To Colonel Collins. 

"74 Lancaster Gate, W. 
" i^th December 1898. 

" Dear Arthur, — Yes. Saturday ' suits ' and 

looks auspicious. I have had the cook examine the 

280 




The irriliiig dcfk. at Cinnhcrh'H on irliicli he often worked, and 
trliere lie penned ///.s last line>-\ 




ii/.s- Ubrdrij iind irritinii tnhle at 74, L(ine(i:<tey date, I.e>ndo)i. 

[To ftice p. 280. 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

entrails of a fowl, and find the omens propitious ! 
Let it be Saturday, then. 

" You will give me ' bread and pulse ' at Brookes', 
and I will lead you to Arcadian stalls at the Al- 
hambra or Empire. For heaven's sake let us go 
somewhere where we can laugh in the right place ! 

" I have not yet dared to face my Christmas 
shopping, but I'll pick up your offering at the Club 
and send you mine. It is so difficult to find some- 
thing sufficiently idiotic and useless, to keep up 
our fond, foolish custom with. — Yours always, 

Bret Harte." 

Another letter that Colonel Collins has most 
kindly placed at my disposal was dated from my 
home, when he was staying there and we were writing 
" Sue." The fact that he would not leave his work to 
take part in a gathering he would have enjoyed, 
shows how truly anxious he was to see his works 
properly placed on the stage. 

" To Colonel Collins. 

"Pye Corner, Broadway, Worcestershire, 
"June 25, '95. 

" My dear Arthur, — What do you mean by 

having a Jubilee at a time when I can't attend ? For 

I am afraid it will not be possible for me to get away 

from here (where I am visiting with a friend) before 

Monday next, much as I should enjoy meeting you 

with your friends, and gladly as I would throw over 

281 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

any social engagement for that purpose. But I am 
here on business, of which sometime I will tell you 
further. 

" And what do you mean by flaunting your trifling 
' coming of age ' in the face of an old moustache of 
. fifty-six like me ? You and I are mere infants before 
this modern generation — who are born tired, are bat- 
tered cynics at twenty, and doddering decadents at 
thirty ; who don't understand the youthful exuber- 
ance of Dickens, any more than they do the mellowed 
wine of Thackeray, but get drunk on green unfer- 
mented literature and fancy they are inspired. Don't 
talk of growing old in this age of infant decrepitude, 

"Why haven't I seen you? I sent over from the 
Club the other day to try and capture you at 24 St. 
James' Street, that you might lunch with me, but the 
manager brought back word that you would not re- 
turn before the afternoon. Do let me hear from you. 
I was so sorry I could not come to Hare's dinner, but 
I had accepted an invitation from the Chappells for 
the following Sunday to meet him. In great haste, 
yours always, Bret Harte." 

But, though the Sullivan scheme was abandoned, 

the unwearying writer never lost his desire to become 

the author of the libretto of an operetta. At one 

time he took up his pretty romance, " At the Mission 

of San Carmel," and for it composed these hitherto 

unpublished lyrics. But he did not persevere with his 

scheme, and let the verses lie in his desk. 

282 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

FATHER PEDRO. 

From strand to sea and from sea to strand, 

From sand to sedge and from reef to shingle, 
Wherever the Angelus, tolled inland. 

With the war of the surges meet and mingle, 
Wherever these blessed bells are borne, 

Far as the seagull lifts his pinion : 
On dancing sea, or on sands forlorn — 

That is the Holy Church dominion. 

Wanderer, waif, or castaway. 

Within the spell of that mystic blessing, 
Whether on sea-shore, bight or bay. 

Becomes a part of Her own possessing ; 
Thus we see in the most profound 

Ecclesiastical opinion, 
" Flotsam and jetsam " like this when found 

Are all in the Holy Church dominion. 

SONG.— LULLABY TO A CHILD. 

When the Mission garden is sunk in shade, 

And the pear-tree leaves hang still. 
And the radiant sun, like our mystic Host 

Is lowered beneath the hill ; 
When the stealthy fog through the sea-ward dell 

Creeps in with the breath of the sea, 
In my lonely cell — to the Angelus bell — 

I have dreamed a dream of thee. 

I have dreamed of a child that should lift my soul 

With a spiritual father's care, 
A child to train for the heavenly goal 

With precept and maxim rare ; 
A child of my race — though none of kin 

To this mortal flesh that I bear, — 
That a parent's love — without mortal sin — 

Might dwell with me everywhere. 
283 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

As late as 1901 he completed "The Lord of 
Fontenelle " for the Hungarian composer M. Emmanuel 
Moor. This has yet to be heard, but I am, thanks 
to M. Moor's courtesy, permitted to publish these 
verses, which are set in a most ingenious and well- 
told story : — 

DICK'S SONG. 

Whether on the lone prairie where buffaloes roam, 

In London, or Paris, or Berlin, I stray. 
In the shade of St. Paul's or St. Peter's big dome, 

I gallop and gallop and gallop away ! 
In the Roman arena my hoofprints are plain, 

I have lassoed my horse on the banks of the Spree, 
I have scalped the Sioux by the flow of the Seine, 

As I gallop and buckjump and canter away ! 

In London my running was thought to be " stunning," 

In Paris the click of my spurs was " tres chic," 
Though the skill girls admire, their lovers call " cunning," 

And term a mere " trick " the true courage of Dick ; 
So I've cut their palaver, and to take ship from Havre 

I've galloped and galloped and galloped all day, 
Till my horse on a boulder has just slipped his shoulder 

And I — a pathfinder — have quite lost my way ! 

Dick had evidently been intimately associated with 
the displays of " Buffalo Bill." 

THE LEGEND. 

Long, long ago, throughout the park and wild wood, 
Long, long ago ! — ere you and I were born — 

Here in the shade, our fathers in their childhood 
Trembled to here Count Armand's fateful horn 
284 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

Rising and falling 

Through the woods and calling 
Prayers for his soul in youthful folly lost, 
Doomed here to range, in solitude recalling 
That day of sacrilege his soul and body cost. 



For on that day when good St. Hubert granted 
Freedom from chase to every antlered beast. 
Dead they had found him beside a stag that panted. 
Still from that chase the Count has never ceased ; 
And for the breaking 
Of that Saint's day-making 
Chase of the beast the Church would that day spare 
He is condemned to wander ever, waking 

Woodland and dingle with their wild fanfare. 



CHORUS.— THE ANGELUS CHANT. 

Holy Angels in this hour, 

When light fades and shadows lower 
And the foul fiend holds his power, 
Guard us with thy mystic spell ! 
Let thy soft far-reaching bell 
With its charm surround our towers. 
Banish sprites and blights of flowers ! 
And all ills that come to dwell ; 
Guard the House of Fontenelle. 



SONG. 

Oh thou, condemned by Fate 
To wander desolate 

Ever alone ! 
Know ! thou art not forgot. 
One heart that knows thee not 
Would, for thy cruel lot 

Thy sins atone. 
285 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

Eyes that ne'er dwelt on thee 
When thou wast bold and free, 
Weep for thy misery, 

Thy youth undone. 
Knight of my fantasy ! 
In dreams I walk wdth thee, 
In dreams I talk with thee, 

My lonely one ! 



SONG. 

When a maiden would not marry, 
And the single fain would tai-ry 
Though new suitors come and go, 
'Tis not friends their plans miscarry, 
'Tis not always the old Harry 
Keeps her single ! Ah ! No ! No ! 

When she's tearful, dull, or tragic, 

Trace it not to sinful magic 

That the Church can overthrow ! 

Mediaeval necromancy 

Never swayed a maiden's fancy 

Like some young man ! No ! No ! No ! 



SONG. 

When a man knows his horse, 

And is bold on the course 
With a speed that you cannot come nigh to 

When he swings at your side 

In a galloping stride, 
Be sure he's the fellow to tie to. 
You may gallop away all Life's sunny day 
With just such a fellow to tie to. 
286 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

With his seat like a rock 

That no onset can shock, 
He's the man when in trouble to fly to, 

For when fate takes the bit 

Still beside you he'll sit, 
Where he'll ride, and he'll bide, and he'll die, too. 



SONG.— TO LORD FONTENELLE'S PORTRAIT. 

! scion of an ancient race. 
However high thy deeds and place 
Thy gallant mien and knightly grace, 

I envy not thy state. 

1 only grudge — more dear to me — 
Her love that has ennobled thee 
Above the stateliest degree 

Of Prince or Potentate. 



soul accursed — whate'er thy doom — 
Thy penance dark beyond the tomb, 

1 would with joy thy fate assume 

For tears from her sweet eyes, 
And trust that pure and holy rain 
Would wash my dust of mortal stain, 
And through her Paradise regain 

And bless the sacrifice ! 



Man like myself — and lover bold, 
If that dull canvas still doth hold 
One drop of thy fierce blood of old, 

That flowed in list and chase. 
Step from thy frame in warlike grace 
Do battle — as for Honour dear — 
For her sweet sake — or take thou here 

My gauntlet in thy face ! 
287 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

He liked to have his verses well set to music, 
but was particular with regard to the composer. 
He was especially delighted when Charles Gounod 
took a fancy to " The Mission Bells of Monterey," 
and wrote him from the continent, " Our bells are 
already ringing," . His niece, Miss Griswold, under- 
took the exquisite poem, " What the Chimney Sang," 
the poem in which he unconsciously summed up 
his own character. In it he tells us how the half- 
sorrowful woman hated the wind in the chimney ; 
how the trembling children feared the wind in the 
chimney ; how the practical husband and father 
resolved to mend the hole in the chimney ; and 
then comes the beautiful concluding verse : — 

" Over the chimney the night-wind sang 
And chanted a melody no one knew, 
But the Poet listened and smiled for he 
Was Man, and Woman, and Child, all three ; 
And said — ' It is God's own hai-mony. 
This wind we hear in the chimney.' " 

Yes, in that Poet — the Man and Woman and 
Child, all three — Bret Harte was personified, and •; 
that is why those who really knew and understood J 
him loved him. I 

Another composition that pleased him well was I 
Mrs. T. Edgar Pemberton's accompaniment (which •'' 
was undertaken at his wish) to his pretty " Hasta * 
Manana." I 

In a mirthful mood he dashed off for Mr. Leo {! 

Stern a capital semi-burlesque " nigger song." This j 

is how it runs : — 

288 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 



UNCLE JUBA. 

" Dar was a man in Florida, dey called him ' Uncle Ju,' 
De doctoi- found him proof agin all fevers dat dey knew ; 
De cholera bacillus he would brush away like flies, 
And yaller fever microbes he would simply jess despise. 
For he was such a bery seasoned nigger 

Froo and froo — all froo. 
Just de acclimated, vaccinated figger 

To do — to do. 
When de sojer boys came marching, dey would shout, 
' Lordy ! Her's de man for Cuba — trot him out. 
For even if he cannot pull a trigger 

Just like you — like you, 
He's a seasoned and an acclimated figure, 
Dat will do — will do.' 



De proudest man in Florida dat day was ' Uncle Ju,' 
When dey marched him off to Cuba wid de odder boj's in blue ; 
He had a brand new unifoim, a red cross on his arm, 
He said, ' Don't mind me, darkies, I can't come to any harm, 
For de surgeon dat inspected of my figger 

When on view — on view, 
Sez I'm just de kind of acclimated nigger 

Dat 'ud do — wov^ld do. 
I can tackle yaller fever all de day, 
I'm de only man for Cuba what can stay, 
For agin de bery worst kind of malaria 

Dat dey knew — dey knew, 
I'm an iron-plated, sheathed and belted ai"ea 
Froo and froo — all froo.' 



Alas ! for Ju. poor Uncle Ju, aldo dar was no doubt 
Dey passed him froo as fever proof, one ting dey had left out ; 
For while he took his rations straight, and odders died like flies, 
Along o' dat 'er Yaller Jack and deadly Cuban skies, 

289 T 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

And though such a bery highly seasoned nigger 

Froo and froo — all froo, 
And an acclimated, vaccinated figure 

Just like new — like new, 
One day a Spanish gunner sent a shell 
Which skooted dat poor darkie off to dwell 
Where de fever would send any odder nigger 

Like you — like you, 
For it flattened out dat acclimated figger 

Ob old Ju — poor Ju." 

Good dramatic art of every class appealed to 
Bret Harte, but I think his favourite actor on the 
English stage was John Hare. His methods naturally 
appealed to him. The admirably finished Meissonier- 
like stage portraits of the comedian were not unlike 
the finely yet minutely etched-in pen-pictures of the 
author. They worked together in different branches 
of the same school. When some seven or eight years 
ago John Hare first visited America it fell to my 
lot to write a book concerning his career in England. 
Bret Harte was most anxious that his favourite should 
be appreciated by his countrymen, and to my pages 
voluntarily contributed this letter : — 

"My dear Pemberton, — If anything is to be 
written of John Hare introductory to his visit to 
America, I am delighted that it should fall to hands 
as appreciative and conscientious as yours, although 
it seems to me scarcely possible that so accomplished 
an artist as he should require any other introduction 
to my countrymen than the 'bill of the play' and 

290 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

the lifting of the curtain. For to see him act is to 
love him, and ' to love him is a liberal, theatrical 
education.' I know that America will be quick to 
recognise that, while he is in tradition and experience 
thoroughly an English actor, he expresses that finest 
quality of restraint so beloved of the Comedie Fran- 
9aise, but which we don't always recognise in the 
highly emotional roles it sends across the Channel 
to us. What I think is still more remarkable in 
Hare's acting is his complete abnegation of self in 
his characters, a quality so strong that it seems to 
heighten the efforts of those who support him ; he 
is the character, and the others are capital act07^s 
who exist to draw him out. I don't believe that 
applause ever startles him from this singular and 
delightful concentration. I have seen him come before 
the curtain to receive his well-earned tribute with 
a slightly pained and deprecatory air, as one who 
should say, ' You really mustn't praise me for acting, 
you know ; it's the other fellows. I am really Mr. 
So-and-so ! ' It is for this reason, because he has 
made the whole scene so delightful, and put every- 
body at their best, that one is apt to forget him in 
the perfection of his art, and one does not always 
yield him his full meed of applause. 

" I am told that he takes with him to America 
a limited repertoire, and that it is likely to affect his 
popularity with the masses. I should not predicate 
that of a people who have made Jefferson immortal 

in one or two plays, and he is quite as fortunate in 

291 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND j 

his ' Pair of Spectacles ' as Jefferson was in his ' Rip ; 
Van Winkle.' What a wholesome breath is wafted i 
over the footlights in Grundy's charming adaptation 
of that pretty French trifle ! I do not believe that 
we, in America, are so familiar with the miasma of 
cynical doubt, or the firedamp of explosive senti- '' 
mentalism, as to draw back in our stalls from so j 
honest and revivifying an atmosphere. And how {' 
delightfully Hare, even with look and gesture, traces i 
the unfailing optimism of the hero, through its momen- 
tary refraction and aberration into cynicism under i 
the disturbing lens of the borrowed spectacles, to the 
perfectly natural and convincing climax ! One such ' 
play, and one such character, should carry him far ' 
across the continent and far into the hearts of the 
American people, and I shall be much mistaken if 
they do not. 

" I am not a critic — Heaven forfend ! so I cannot 
approach his art properly equipped and consciously 
superior. But I should like to dwell on what seems 
to me to be his singularly crisp delivery, every word | 
ringing out clearly, so that even in his wonderful i 
rendering of an old man's utterance his mumble is j 
never unintelligible, or his loquacity slurred or in- ] 
distinct. His enunciation of emphasis is nearly perfect. 
I have a very vivid recollection of his delivery of the 
apology forced from Spencer Jermyn by his wife in 
the last act of Pinero's comedy, ' The Hobby Horse.' 
The language is very simple, as Pinero always is 

when he is most subtle — so simple I should hesitate 

292 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

to transcribe it, but Pinero knew that Hare could 
inform it with the very spirit of the irony he intended. 
So that it stands now with Hare's deUvery as one 
of the most dehghtful and sarcastic resumes of the 
moral and sentimental situations of a play I ever 
witnessed. 

" It seems to me also that so much could be said 
of his wonderfully minute study of the half senile 
character, where the habits and impulses of youth 
remain to override the actual performance. There is 
a notable instance of this in his wonderful portrayal 
of the Duke of St. Olpherts in ' The Notorious Mrs. 
Ebbsmith.' He is gallantly attempting to relieve 
Mrs. Thorpe of the tray she is carrying, but of course 
lacks the quickness, the alertness, and even the actual 
energy to do it, and so follows her with delightful 
simulation of assistance all over the stage, while she 
carries it herself, he pursuing the form and ignoring 
the performance. It is a wonderful study. And who 
does not remember Beau Farintosh in ' School,' and 
all that splendid forge tfulness of the, alas ! all too 
necessary eyeglass ? 

" Do with this what you like, only don't make 
my arms seem to ache with reaching up to pat such 
a tall fellow as Hare on the head. — Yours always, 

Bret Harte." 

In this careful and pleasant fashion he would, 
in conversation, analyse the methods of all the actors 
and actresses he admired. He always declared that 

293 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

he was no critic, but he was in truth a very keen | 

one, though a little prone to be severe on plays and i 

players unsuited to his taste. i 

Even in things theatrical he was patriotic, and he ! 
held that, in his day, no English actor could be com- 
pared with his friend and countryman Edwin Booth. 

No doubt he was a very great as well as a very j; 

graceful actor, and concerning him Bret Harte could 1 

be enthusiastic. I 

When, in 1882, Booth acted in Glasgow the \ 
friends frequently met, and would have done so 

oftener but for the actor's gradually failing health. j 

This little letter speaks for itself 

" Grand Hotel, Tuesday. 

" My dear Harte, — I will drop in to see you as 
soon as I can. I am prevented from doing so to-day J 
as I intended. Before ten a.m. I am never up, and 
after four p.m. I am usually doiV7i for my nap, which 
I always require before acting. ' Darling, I am 
growing old ! ' I will try to see you sure to-morrow 
at the Consulate. I am afraid that I will not be able 
to accept your kind invitation to luncheon, but will 
have a pipe and a chat with you. 

" I am in a hurry, as my girls (my daughter and 
her friend) are waiting for me to drive with them. 
Adieu. — Ever yours, Edwin Booth." 

Apart from his Shakespearean representations he 

especially loved to see Booth as Bichelieu in Bulwer s 

294 



IN AND ABOUT STAGELAND 

play of that name. With Winiam Winter he beheved 
this impersonation alone would have made him emi- 
nent and famous, and he too perceived in him the 
image of an actor of great elemental power and of 
astonishing versatility. 



295 



CHAPTER VIII 

LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS, AND LATER WORK 

I HAVE already said something of the manner of Bret 
Harte's Ufe in England. It was very simple, and, 
though he took a certain amount of relaxation, he 
was always working. But his work had to be done 
in his own minutely careful way, and he took more 
time and pains over it than most writers would do 
or most readers could imagine. The manuscripts that 
he preserved show the extreme care with which they 
were produced. When he had finished one story he 
at once began to think about the next. It might 
happen that for several days he would not write a 
line, but think constantly over a plot or an incident 
that might work up into a plot. He would even sit 
at his desk with his blank paper before him, and after 
the lapse of several hours get up and pace the room, 
or leave it, saying that he had an idea but had not 
so far been able to work it out. To such a literary 
friend as Madame Van de Velde he would often talk 
about that idea, asking, " Do you like that ? " " Do 
you think it is good ? " Once satisfied with his con- 
ception he began to write. The initial lines, consisting 
only of a few words, would often be repeated with 

slight alterations on many sheets of paper, and this 

296 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

apparently with rapidity, but in reality with consi- 
derable mental effort. Having satisfied himself with 
a beginning, the pages would be filled in with that 
close, neat handwriting which characterised both his 
manuscripts and his private correspondence. At the 
onset he did not always see the end of his story, and 
would say, " I don't know what the winding-up will 
be, but I do know what my characters are, and they 
will work their own conclusion." 

He never wrote very much at a time — a thousand 
words a day was probably the limit — but no day 
passed without his adding something to the story 
when once it was well in hand. Hard to please, he 
did not write unless he felt his lines were good, and 
there were few corrections in his manuscripts, although 
he sometimes added or suppressed something in the 
proofs — most frequently when he felt his character- 
istic endings to be too abrupt. Completely absorbed 
though he was in composition, he never allowed him- 
self to appear vexed by interruption, and would lay 
down his pen to answer any questions or to respond 
to any call. 

During long mornings he would sit at his desk, 
pen in hand, and his eyes fixed on the story he was 
conjuring up. His extraordinary gift of observation 
— almost unconscious observation — and his wonder- 
fully retentive and accurate memory served him well, 
and enabled him to see vividly the things he por- 
trayed in his word pictures. 

He thought much of the names of his characters, 

297 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

and promptly altered any Christian or surname that 
did not seem exactly right. And the titles of his 
stories were ever matters of considerable deliberation. 
With the longer novels, such as " Gabriel Conroy," 
" Maruja," "Susy," "Clarence," and "Cressy" it was 
plain sailing, but when it came to the volumes of 
collected stories much trouble was taken. Thus 
" Shore and Sedge," " Tales of the Pine and Cypress," 
" Buckeye and Chapparel," " Tales of Trail and Town," 
"Stories in Light and Shadow," "From Sand-Hill to 
Pine," and "On the Old Trail" (the last volume 
published during his lifetime), required an infinite 
amount of thinking out, and seemed to the author 
like a second baptism of his dream children. 

It is well that those who are interested in the 
life of Bret Harte should know these things, because 
some censors would have us believe that his later 
stories were written in a hurry, and, as it were, " to 
order." Nothing could be more untrue. He took 
as much pains with his last tale as he did with " The 
Luck of Boaring Camp," and one and all are worth 
more careful reading than is given to literature in 
these davs of frantic rush. 

That the novelty of the thing should wear off was 
inevitable. He was the pioneer of the short story, 
and he had opened the way for countless and many 
reputable followers. 

In his own article on " The Bise of the Short 
Story," he has said : — 

" But while the American literary imagination 

298 



AND LATER WORK 

was still under the influence of English tradition, 
an unexpected factor was developing to diminish its 
power. It was humour, of a quality as distinct and 
original as the country and civilisation in which it 
was developed. It was at first noticeable in the 
anecdote or ' story,' and, after the fashion of such 
beginnings, was orally transmitted. It was common 
in the bar-rooms, the gatherings in the ' country 
store,' and finally at public meetings in the mouths 
of ' stump orators.' Arguments were clinched and 
political principles illustrated by ' a funny story.' It 
invaded even the camp meeting and pulpit. It at last 
received the currency of the public press. But wher- 
ever met it was so distinctly original and novel, so 
individual and characteristic, that it was at once 
known and appreciated abroad as ' an American 
story.' Crude at first, it received a literary polish 
in the press, but its dominant quality remained. It 
was concise and condense, yet suggestive. It was 
delightfully extravagant, or a miracle of understate- 
ment. It voiced not only the dialect, but the habits 
of thought of a people or locality. It gave a new 
interest to slang. From a paragraph of a dozen 
lines it grew into half a column, but always retain- 
ing its conciseness and felicity of statement. It was 
a foe to prolixity of any kind ; it admitted no fine 
writing nor affectation of style. It went directly 
to the point. It was burdened by no conscientious- 
ness ; it was often irreverent ; it was devoid of all 

moral responsibility, but it was original ! By degrees 

299 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

it developed character with its incident, often, in a 
few lines, gave a striking photograph of a community 
or a section, but always reached its conclusion with- 
out an unnecessary word. It became — and still exists ; 
as — an essential feature of newspaper literature. It 
was the parent of the American ' short story.' " ! 

Accept these facts and it will be seen that in i 

his mature years Bret Harte worked at a disadvan- ; 
tage. Even if the California of his early days had 

existed and he had lived among his old surround- l 
ings, he would not have frequented the bar-rooms, 

country stores, and camp meetings that had excited 1 

his youthful curiosity, and provided the material for | 

his earlier work. He had either to invent the germ i 

of his stories or to draw upon the store of his recol- j 

lections. It was wonderful that the mine proved i 

inexhaustible. Add to this the fact that he never ! 

" pushed himself." Having taught others how to j 

play his own game, he encouraged rather than de- j 

precated rivalry. Rightly it has been said of him i 

that of all the writers of his time he was the most J 

modest, the most unobtrusive, the most anxious to I 

give honour where he believed honour to be due. j 

And yet on English soil he was able to create j 

a character worthy to live with the immortal Colonel | 

Starbottle and the ever fascinating Jack Hamlin, j 

I allude to Enriquez, the loquacious young Cali- \ 

fornian of varied accomplishments, whose conversa- i 

tion is famous for a marvellous combination of Spanish i 

precision and California slang. Let those who doubt tj 

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this statement read " Chu Chu," " The Devotion of 
Enriquez," and that touching conception, " The Pass- 
ing of Enriquez," Then let them ask themselves 
if Bret Harte's genius failed him in his later years. 

If, during this long and laborious period, he, in 
common with many of us, had his deep personal dis- 
appointments and sorrows, he bore them with the 
chivalry of a Bayard and a silence as dignified as 
it was pathetic. To a man of his sensitive nature 
the barbed shafts of " envy and calumny, and hate 
and pain," lacerated with a cruelty that at times 
must have seemed unendurable. Under such tor- 
ments he often writhed, but he suffered all things 
with a quiet patience that afforded a glorious example 
to those friends who, knowing of his wounds, had 
to be silent concerning them, and could offer him no 
balm. While he was in Scotland he came across, 
and was much impressed with, the motto of the Earls 
Mareschal of Aberdeen, " They say ! What say they f 
Let them say ! " When, as he was fond of doing, 
he quoted these words with a quiet scorn that seemed 
to give colour to them, it was easy to see how and 
why they moved him. 

His recreations consisted chiefly in visits to the 
country and the homes of his friends. His know- 
ledge of England was marvellous. He was familiar 
with and knew the history of every cathedral, abbey 
church, and historic ruin in the land. In Scotland 
he made a pilgrimage to all the spots associated with 

Macbeth ; in Yorkshire he sought out Charlotte 

301 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

Bronte's home, for though he did satirise her in his 
condensed novel " Miss Mix," he had true admiration 
for her genius. In such things as these he took the 
deepest interest, and I need hardly say he was often 
in Stratford-on-Avon, and had explored all the beau- 
tiful Warwickshire Shakespeare-land. 

One of his greatest pleasures in this way was 
his visit to Mr. and Mrs. Webb at Newstead Abbey, 
Nottingham. There he fairly revelled in memories 
of his beloved Byroii. He was not a collector of 
things, but of this holiday he brought back and 
cherished several souvenirs. They are before me 
now : dried leaves picked by him from the oak-tree 
kthat Byron planted ; a sprig of olive-green box from 
the hedge near "Boatswain's" tomb, with a memo- 
randum in his neat handwriting : " There is a picture 
of ' Boatswain ' — a good-humoured but not a very large 
' Newfoundland ' — in the West Gallery ; " and many 
photographs all duly labelled. On the back of one 
of them he records an excursion to a country he 
always longed to see, for, from his boyhood, he was 
fascinated with the legends of Robin Hood, Friar 
Tuck, and the Merry Men who were their happy-go- 
lucky comrades. " ' The Major Oak.' Ninety feet 
in diameter at roots. A famous tree in Sherwood 
Forest. I kept it as a memento of a luncheon party 
in the ' merry greenwood,' and not for its beauty or 
majesty, for there were smaller trees finer, and the 
forest as a whole was superb." 

Another historic house in which he was often the 

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AND LATER WORK 

welcome guest of his friend Lord Compton (now the 
Marquis of Northampton) was Compton Wynyates in 
Warwickshire, a place that has been in the family of 
the' Comptons since the time of King John. Apart 
from the keen pleasure he always felt in the com- 
panionship of Lord Compton, he loved to gaze upon 
the fine old house with its famous chimneys all 
worked in spires and zigzags, and to muse over the 
far away lore in which the whole place is enveloped. 
Then when he visited Castle Ashby, Northampton- 
shire, the principal residence of the family, he would 
ponder over the portraits of the Northamptons and 
Comptons of the "brave days of old," and conjure up 
pictures of that fierce fight at Edge Hill, hard by 
Compton Wynyates, between Royalists and Round- 
heads. Such things as these had continual charm for 
him, and as he was everywhere a welcome guest he 
studied the " Stately Homes of England " to the best 
advantage. As usual his surroundings had their 
influence on his work. In more than one of his 
stories we get glimpses of these experiences, and in 
" The Desborough Connections " his description of 
Scrooby Manor shows clearly the impression they 
made upon him. " It was a historic house, and had 
always struck him" (the American Consul) "as being, 
even in that country of historic seats, a singular 
example of the vicissitudes of English manorial 
estates and the mutations of its lords. His host in 
his prime had been recalled from foreign service to 
unexpectedly succeed to an uncle's title and estate. 

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LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

That estate, however, had come into possession of the 
uncle only through his marriage with the daughter 
of an old family whose portraits still look down from 
the walls upon the youngest and alien branch. There 
were likenesses, effigies, memorials, and reminiscences 
of still older families who had occupied it through 
forfeiture by war or the favouritism of kings, and in 
its stately cloisters and ruined chapel was still felt 
the dead hand of its evicted religious founders, which 
could not be shaken off." 

At Crewe Hall he was the guest of the Earl of 
Crewe, and he particularly valued a copy of Jane 
Austen's " Emma," in which, before giving it to him, 
his host had written these lines : — 

** Beneath our grey unlovely skies 
She wielded once her dainty pen, 
With tolerant smile and wistful eyes, 
Calm critic of the mind of men. 

Brave wizard of the breezier west, 
Though life be short, yet art endures, 

Shadow or sun, we love the best 

That art can give us, hers or ' yours.' " — Crewe. 

He was rather fond of poking fun at the use made 
by the English of coats-of-arms and crests. " I can't 
see what good they are to you," he would say as he 
glanced at a book-plate, or handled table silver on 
which a crest was displayed. Once he said to me, 
" I suppose that pony of yours would be deeply hurt 
if you removed that meaningless emblem from his 

304 






AND LATER WORK 

harness, and after all you do quite right to make the 
pony happy." And yet he took the greatest interest 
in such matters, and was far better versed in heraldry 
than most Englishmen. 

To the distinguished host of one of the country 
mansions in which he had been a guest, he wrote the 
following postscript to a letter : — 

'' P.S. — The double crest on your notepaper has 
always troubled me. I have, after a sleepless night, 
finally come to the following pleasing and instructive 
solution of it. I copyright this idea for your benefit. 

HERALDIC FABLES. 
Edited by Sir Bernard Burke. 



The Sejant Lion and the Proper Stork. 

" A Sejant Lion once called upon a Proper Stork. 
'Pray be seated,' said the Stork, politely, offering 
him one of the fashionable low chairs now so much 



in vogue. 






But the Sejant Lion, instead of accepting, rushed to 

a music stool, and began to rapidly screw it up to a 

proper height for his use. 

" ' Why,' said the Stork, regardant, ' are you like 

a newly elected member ? ' 

305 u 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

" ' I am not an Irish Secretary,' responded the 
Lion with dignity, ' to answer ill-timed questions — 
but why am I ? ' 

" ' Because,' said the Stork, ' you expect to be 
elevated by your seat.' 

" The Lion remained for an instant ' at gaze,' then 

became ' salient,' and finally ' rampant.' Countering 

with his ' dexter ' paw, he caught the Stork heavily 

with a slogging blow on the ' crest ' and ' inflamed ' 

his eye. However, the appearance of a ' party per 

pale ' ' helmetted ' with a ' chevron ' (Seinant of 

Irish Constabulary) on the scene, put an end to the 

encounter. 

" Moral. 

" This Fable teaches us that a Sejant Lion can 
Git Along with Less Stork than any other Dumb 
Animal. Bret Harte." 



But while he mixed in the highest circles of 
English society, and took deep and sympathetic 
interest in all he saw and heard, he never forgot 
America or his American principles. If with com- 
parative strangers he was reticent, he quickly let his 
intimate friends know which, according to his views, 
was the better organised country of the two. How 
often I have heard him laugh heartily at our patient 
tolerance of things which he called monstrous ! Nor 
did he forget his American friends. One of these 
was William Francis Bartlett, scholar, soldier, and a 

gentleman : a man who had a fascination for Bret 

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Harte, as he realised so closely his rather exacting 
ideal of a hero. Maimed and shattered in health 
his friend returned from his terrible experiences and 
gallant deeds in the fierce fight between the North 
and South, yet, according to Bret Harte, he was 
" still the gentle scholar ; still the modest gentle- 
man." When this loved comrade died he took in- 
finite pains over these verses concerning him. They 
appeared in Scrihners Magazine, but strangely enough 
were not included in his collected works : — 

" poor Romancer — thou whose printed page, 

Filled with rude speech and ruder forms of strife, 
Was given to heroes in whose vulgar rage 

No trace appears of gentler ways and life ! — 

Thou, who wast wont of commoner clay to build 

Some rough Achilles or some Ajax tall ; 
Thou, whose free brush too oft was wont to gild 

Some single virtue till it dazzled all ; — 

What right hast thou beside this laurelled bier 
Whereon all manhood lies — whereon the wreath 

Of Harvard rests, the civic crown, and here 

The starry flag, and sword and jewelled sheath ? 

Seest thou these hatchments? Knowest thou this blood 

Nourished the heroes of Colonial days ; — 
Sent to the dim and savage-haunted wood 

Those sad-eyed Puritans with hymns of praise ? 

Look round thee ! Everywhere is classic ground. 

There Greylock rears. Beside yon silver ' Bowl ' 
Great Hawthorne dwelt, and in its mirror found 

Those quaint, strange shapes that filled his poet's soul. 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

Still silent, Stranger ? Thou, who now and then 

Touched the too credulous ear with pathos, canst not speak ? 

Hast lost thy ready skill of tongue and pen ? 
What, Jester ! Tears upon that painted cheek ? 

Pardon, good friends ! I am not here to mar 

His laurelled wreaths with this poor tinselled crown, — 

This man who taught me how 'twas better far 
To be a poem than to write it down. 

I bring no lesson. Well have others preached 
This sword that dealt full many a gallant blow ; 

I come once more to touch the hand that reached 
Its knightly gauntlet to the vanquished foe. 

O pale Aristocrat, that liest there. 

So cold, so silent ! Couldst thou not in grace 

Have borne with us still longer, and so spare 
The scorn we see in that proud, placid face ? 

' Hail and farewell ! ' So the proud Roman cried 
O'er his dead hero. ' Hail,' but not ' farewell.' 

With each high thought thou walkest side by side ; 

We feel thee, touch thee, know who wrought the spell ! " 

Another valued American friend was Clarence 
King, the eminent geologist. In sending him one 
of his publications, Bret Harte inscribed it : — 

" To Clarence King, author of ' Geology of the Fortieth 
Parallel,' and other works of fiction." 



Here is another old and long-forgotten stanza of 

his that must be reproduced : — 

308 : 



AND LATER WORK 

LINES IN AN ALBUM 

(From the " Californian") 

" Sweet Mary, maid of San Andreas, 
Upon her natal day, 
Procured an album, double gilt, 
Entitled ' The Bouquet.' 

But what its purpose was, beyond 

Its name, she could not guess ; 
And so between its gilded leaves 

The flower he gave she'd press. 

Yet blame her not, poetic youth. 
Nor deem too great the wrong ; 

She knew not Hawthorne's bloom, nor loved 
Macaulay's flowers of song. 

Her hymn book was the total sum 

Of her poetic lore ; 
And having read through Dr. Watts, 

She did not ask for Moore. 

But when she ope'd her book again. 

How great was her surprise 
To find the leaves on either side, 

Stained deep with crimson dyes. 

And that fair rose, his latest gift, 

A shapeless form she views ; 
Its fragrance sped, its beauty fled, 

And vanished all its dews. 

Oh, Mary, maid of San Andreas, 

Too sad was your mistake ; 
Yet one, methinks, that wiser folks 

Are very apt to make. 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

Who 'twixt these leaves would fix the shapes 

That Love and Truth assume, 
Will find they keep, like Mary's rose. 

The stain and not the bloom." 

Busy as he always was with his literary work, it 
is wonderful how he found time for his voluminous 
correspondence. But it was always his custom to 
reply promptly to each letter he received, and it is 
certain he took as much pains with every note he 
signed as if it had been an important magazine article. 
I think he found more time for this after he had put 
all his business arrangements into the good hands of 
Mr. A. P. Watt. This was an immense source of 
comfort to him, and he never ceased to speak grate- 
fully of the care and tact with which his affairs were 
managed. Here is proof of it : — 

^^ December 24, 1888. 

" Dear Mr. Watt, — Would you mind attaching 
to your watch-chain the accompanying ' edition ' of 
one of my earlier works, lately republished at Vienna ? 
It would be a pleasant recognition of ray Christmas 
wishes for your welfare, and of the gratitude of an 
author you have served so faithfully. — Yours always, 

Bret Harte." 

This reminds me to say that his stories were ever 

in request on the continent. A great number of them 

were translated into French (and souiv. into German) 

by Madame Van de Velde — and at least one of them, 

" A Drift of Red Wood Camp," was written for pub- 

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AND LATER WORK 

lication in a notable Parisian periodical Les Lettres et 
les Arts. There, under Madame Van de Velde's title, 
Une Epave de Bois Rouge, it appeared some time be- 
fore it appealed to sympathetic English and American 
readers. 

I am happily enabled to introduce more evidence 
of his strong appreciation of Mr. Watt's ever-ready 
and efficient help : — 

''Christmas Day, 1892. 

" Dear Mr. Watt, — Many thanks for your 
pretty match - box of tortoiseshell — which is ' real 
turtle ' in its quality ! It is another of the pleasant 
mementoes of you that throng my desk as I write 
and keep in mind the friend as well as the business 
adviser. With best wishes and greetings of the 
season, — Yours always, Bret Harte." 

In this interesting letter he refers to the life- 
like portrait by John Pettie, R.A., for which he 

sat in 1885 : — 

"March 6, 1893. 

" My dear Watt, — I thoroughly sympathise with 
your loving appreciation of John Pettie. I was 
very thankful to sit to him, and stiU more thankful 
that during that pleasant process he .sat to me 
much more unconsciously — as a delightful study of 
a strong, simple, wholesome, artistic nature. I 
am afraid I bothered him a good deal with unac- 
commodating features and evasive expression ; I 

311 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

felt a little criminal at times ; though I thoroughly 
enjoyed — as a brother artist in another line — his 
frank impatience and half-humorous rages when he 
had any difficulty in realising his high ideals in 
the subject before him. But he was always good- 
humoured and infinitely painstaking. And I count 
the hours I spent in the studio in Fitz - John's 
Avenue among my pleasantest memories. 

Even then I should have had more than my 
due if his kindness had ended with the sittings, 
the placing of the portrait in the E-oyal Academy 
and its later exhibition in Berlin. But I was greatly 
astonished, and I think very honestly touched, when 
the picture, handsomely framed, came to me on the 
following Christmas, as a free gift, with a few lines 
from his generous hand. It was a characteristic 
extravagance — the unthinking largesse of a true 
artist — but I cannot look up at its masterful work- 
manship now without feeling the presence of its 
talented and generous creator quite as often as my 
own. — Yours always, Bret Harte." 

" BUCKENHAM HaLL, MuNDFORD, NoKFOLK, 

'■^September 12, 1897. 

"My dear Mr. Watt, — How can I thank 

you sufficiently for your charming present of the 

stick ! It came to me just as I had finished my 

summer work on the Christmas story which I owe 

to your contract, and I accept it in its most pleasant 

significance. I cannot hope that it will ' prop up ' 

312 




Frimleij Church. 



ITo face p. 312. 



AND LATER WORK 

any weak passages in my work, but it will always 
remind me of your invaluable assistance as a practical 
staiF to — Yours always, Bret Harte." 

"74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
'■^ Decemher 23, 1897. 

"My dear Mr. Watt, — I am going to Caver- 
sham, to my son's, for Christmas, and this must 
excuse my somewhat premature greetings for the 
season. 

" I hope you will try to make a place on your 
desk for my two little — (and too little) — silver gifts. 
My countrymen have discovered a way of transmuting 
silver to gold, I understand ; and I expect that 
in the course of time these trifles will greatly ap- 
preciate in value ! (I have great hopes of that 
handsome silver cigar-case you once gave me !) But 
whether they do or not, I have greater faith in 
the touchstone of an old friendship transmuting 
these little Christmas exchanges of ours into some- 
thing that every year we hold of higher value. 

" With sincere wishes for your Christmas cheer, 
and prosperity in the New Year, — Believe me, 
dear Mr. Watt, always yours, 

Bret Harte." 

Bret Harte thought much of the Christmas 
season, and to the last kept up the " fond and 
foolish" custom of sending generous presents to 
his friends, and these were always accompanied 

Z^2 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

by humorous letters. In despatching to me a piece 
of furniture for my rather overcrowded hbrary, he 
wrote : — 



" My dear Pemberton, — This must go into 
that room of yours — even if you go out ! Yours 

affectionately, Bret Harte." j 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., ; 

" July I, 1898. I 

" Dear Mr. Watt, — It was very kind of you 1 

to send me your congratulations respecting ' Sue,' | 

as I had no idea you took any interest in such I 

things — or I might have been tempted to send you '; 

tickets for the matinee performance two weeks i 

ago, at the risk of boring you ! However, I trust i 

that the flattering reception which has been given j 

to it will ensure its financial success — which perhaps i 

is my only excuse for diverging from my beaten j 

path of pure romance-writing, in which you have \ 

always been as a welcome staff to my hand. Let j 

us hope that ' Sue ' may offer a little rest and re- • 

creation for us both, at the wayside. Yours always, 1 

Bret Harte." 

The next letter is characteristic of him and his I 

kindly ways. On one of his visits to me he took an * 

amused interest in certain collections of things — .j 

animal, vegetable, and mineral — which my young \\ 

folk had accumulated and called their " museum." \i 

314 



AND LATER WORK 

On his return to London he took the trouble to buy 
from toy shops some weird-looking artificial concoc- 
tions, and sent them to be added to the " curiosity 
department " : — 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
"July s, 1895. 

" My deab Mrs. Pemberton, — I am sending you 
a particularly hideous Japanese ' hat-rack,' against 
that halcyon day when I might again ' hang up my 
hat' in your Worcestershire halls on some future 
visit. It is, however, a real novelty, though I don't 
know whether it isn't better fitted for the ' museum ' 
than the hall. But it can go in a ' dark corner,' and 
frighten ' Phenyl ' when that small dog is naughty. 

" The other things are for the girls' ' museum,' 
in which I took such a scientific interest. The 
skeleton is of ' George Washington when a child,' 
recovered at great expense from the ancestral vaults 
of that little church in Worcestershire, whose name 
I have forgotten, and you will kindly see that it is 
labelled as such. Attention may be called to the 
singular disproportion of the skull and the rest of 
the bony structure, showing the extraordinary cere- 
bral development of the great American, even at 
that early age. The skeleton was undoubtedly taken 
at the great ' cherry tree ' epoch of his history, and 
a glance at the frontal angles of the head will show 
the impossibility of his ' telling a lie,' or, indeed, any- 
thing else, at that time. So the skeleton thus conveys 
that moral which should underlie all scientific facts, 

315 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

and is especially suited for ' Museums ' for the Young 
Person. 

" The entomological specimens consist of ' Spotty- 
bugiana,' a singular Japanese variety, and the Sky 
Terrier Spider, which is supposed to have been the 
one which ' frightened Miss Muffet away.' Examina- 
tion of its abdominal structure shows it to have lived 
exclusively upon ' curds and whey/ collected entirely 
from children. These specimens are singularly rare 
and unique, and are forwarded with the writer's 
compliments to Madge. 

" I am trying to get you ' By Killarney's Rocks 
and Rills' (or words to that effect), and will duly 
send it. I know there was something else I promised, 
and I am sounding the dim, perilous depths of my j 
memory for it. Perhaps, like Browning's Evelyn i 
Hope, ' I shall wake, and remember, and understand,' , 
some time. With kindest remembrances to all your 
household, — Yours always sincerely, 

Bret Harte." 

In 1895 he went to Switzerland. He thoroughly | 

enjoyed his holiday, and often talked of repeating j 

it, but, as will be seen from this note, he would not 1 

have the land of the Alps compared to his glorious i 

California : — ; 

"Hotel Byrne, Villeneuve, Switzerland. 

" My dear Pemberton, — Just a line to say that | 

the scenario of the second act arrived safely. I have 1 

only glanced over it, and it seems quite right, but 

316 



AND LATER WORK 

I shall go over it more carefully in a day or two and 
write you then. 

" The weather here is lovely — almost too lovely 
and luxurious to be bracing ; the views beautiful — 
almost too beautiful, for the terraced lake from Yille- 
neuve on to Territet, Montreux, and Vevey, with the 
river and mountain background, are so unconsciously 
like a picture, and nothing else, that you doubt it 
all. So to ' brace ' myself and realise I went up to 
Geneva by the ' lift ' railway, and thence to Caux, 
and thence to the E-ochet, about 6000 feet, and came 
back to dinner, but not ' braced,' and not entirely 
convinced either. — Yours always, 

Bret Harte. 

'' P.S. — I wouldn't give a mile of the dear old 
honest virgin Sierras for 10,000 kilometres of all 
Switzerland ! " 

He used to say afterwards that much as he revelled 
in the Swiss air and sunshine the scenery always 
reminded him of theatrical act-drops, and that it was 
all so artistically composed that he could not believe 
in it. All the ballet backgrounds, he declared, you 
have ever seen in the theatre, exist there in reality ; 
the views are pictures hanging on a wall, not views 
at all. 

To his valued friend Miss Chappell he wrote many 
diverting letters, and some of them she very kindly 
permits me to reproduce : — 

317 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 

" Jirne 8, 1896. i 

" Dear Miss Chappell, — I find, on referring to ; 

your note, I promised that the momentous question j 

you asked me was ' the difference between a motor | 

carriage and a man who beats his wife ? ' I don't ! 

know the answer, and I don't think I ever did. I 

Koughly speaking, however, I should say that it i 

was that the motor carriage has got rid of its brute, \ 

but the poor woman hasn't got rid of hers ! But that j 

is too obvious to be the real answer. I give it up. j 

Ask me another. | 

" I haven't read Fitzgerald's poem yet, but I will i 

presently, and will then restore it, in its pretty cover, \ 
to its fair owner. — Yours always, Bret Harte. 

" P.S. — I used to know some cheerful, light-hearted i 
Californian conundrums, but as they were quickly ; 
solved, and the answers added greatly to the mortality j 
of the district, I am afraid they are not suited to this i 
effete civilisation. B. H." 

I 
"To Miss Chappell. i 

" Arford House, Headley, Hants, 
" 15?'/^ June 1896. 

" Dear Miss Chappell, — I want to get a copy of 1 
Schubert's Songs (piano and vocal score), containing j 
Shakespeare's song from Cymbeline, ' Hark, hark, the , 
Lark,' &c., ' Der Wanderer,' and " Wasserflake ' (?) I 
have a vague recollection that these songs are all in 
one collection in paper covers ; but I daren't expose 

318 



AND LATER WORK 

my ignorance to your uncle by writing to Bond Street 
directly. I also want a copy of ' I don't want to play 
in your yard ; ' and here again my pen shrinks from 
ordering that unhallowed combination of Schubert 
and the Music Halls. And I don't know that I've got 
the title right ! 

" But will you, please, make a memorandum of 
what you think I mean, and what I ought to have ! 
and give it to your uncle to hand to his clerks to 
procure for me, and send to me at this address in the 
regular way of business? It will be 60 good of 
you. 

" I merely passed through London coming here 
yesterday, but I returned your Fitzgerald by post, I 
hope safely, though in haste. It's a wonderful book. 
I should like to know what you have thought of it, 
and I thank you heartily for lending it to me. Yours 
always, Bret Harte. 

" P.S. — If Schubert has made the mistake of not 
writing any of those German songs you can let me 
know ! ! " 

" To Miss Chappell. 

" Arford House, Headley, Hants, 
" 2jth June, 1896. 

"Dear Miss Chappell, — Thank you, over and 
over again, for your kind and intelligent despatch of 
my little commissions. The Schubert collection is 
exactly the one I wanted, and I have sent it off, with 

3^9 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

the other song (which, however, I really think you 
would like). It's very naive and childlike, and 
' cunning,' as we say in America when we mean 
' artless,' and the air emphasises the words very 
takingly. 

" Now, my dear Frdulein Directorin of the Metzler 
Gesellschaft, I would not only ' entertain ' your idea 
of my writing some words for children's songs, but I 
will give the idea ' lodging ' in my mind permanently. 
It's a good idea. But I don't know yet that I am 
the person to achieve it. But, oddly enough, I've 
written some verses (not yet published, I think) 
called ' What Miss Edith saw from her Window,' 
which might suit, or at least which you might read, 
and I have sent for a proof of them to forward to 
you. At least you will see that my idea is to 
portray a child's feelings, superstitions, and fancies 
in its own simple language. And the real question 
will be how this sort of thing can be metrically con- 
veyed in musical rhythm. The verses I allude to 
now are of the same sentiment and motive as the 
other verses of ' Miss Edith,' which you may remem- 
ber in the ' Poems,' but a much better metre, of four 
alternate long and short lines to each verse, with the 
regular refrain of, ' And that's what I see from my 
window.' 

" I have also an idea of a poem called ' I'm the 
Girl at the Top of the Class,' with that refrain. But 
all this w^e can talk of some other time, I only men- 
tion it that you may understand that the idea has 

320 



AND LATER WORK 

already ' lodgment ' in my mind. But what that 
mind is capable of nourishing and achieving is 
another question ! — Yours always, 

Bret Harte." 



Those who are fortunate enough to possess Bret 
Harte's volume entitled " Some Later Verses," will 
know that " What Miss Edith saw from her Window " 
is one of his daintiest conceits. 

" To Miss Chappell. 

"The Red House, Camberley, Surrey, 
" June 24, 1 90 1. 

" Dear Miss Chappell,— I am afraid it wouldn't 
be possible for me to come down to ' Iver Lodge, Iver ' 
(what a sweetly pretty name, the prettiest that iver 
was !), for I am going to Warwickshire after leaving 
here on the 27th. I might achieve Goring, though, 
later, if I ' was good ' and worked hard ; and I shall 
try to earn that pleasure. 

" But, dear me ! how excessively ambulant you 
are since you let your house ! What wild dissipation 
of outings ! First, Iver Lodge, then Goring, and then 
the Sea ! 

" Your answer to the incomplete half- riddle was 

very, very good ! It reminds me that the other day 

in Lancaster Gate I met the Sultan of Morocco, who 

begged me to ask you if you knew what was the 

reason why the man who found Poker Flat, and 

321 X 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

therefore taught London Bridge and Water-Loo, why- 
he nevertheless failed to make them successful players f 
When I told him I would ask you, he then implored 
me to inform you that the reason why was that none 
of them had the ' Luck of Roaring Camp ' ! This 
beautiful Oriental compliment to both of us touched 
me deeply ! ! ! — Yours always sincerely, 

Bret Harte." 

In the late years of his life he made a hobby of 
photography, and in his initial efforts he was often 
helped by one of my daughters. The usual startling 
amateur results constantly ensued, and the following 
jocular letter suggests that, on at least one occasion, 
I must have been sadly though unconsciously in the 
way of the experimentalists, as they worked in the 
hot sunshine of my old-world garden. 

'* Arfoed House, Hbadley, Hants, 

^^ November 23, 1896. 

" Dear Miss May, — Thank you so much for the 
small indefinite pictures of me and the huge dis- 
tinctive one of your father's foot. It may be a 
foolish, human weakness, but I should have liked 
(as the photos are small) to have had one plate 
all to myself! But I am very thankful all the 
same ! 

" Do you keep a lot of small plates with his foot 

in the corner — a sort of perpetual reminder, a kind 

322 



AND LATER WORK 

of ex pede Herculem, you know ? / don't mind, but 
it must be very discomposing and ominous to the 
average young man whom you may take ! 

" Give my love to your mother and father, and 
beUeve me — Yours always, Bret Harte." 

Encouraging her to persevere, he wrote : — 

"74 Lancaster Gate, W., Thursday. 

" Dear Miss May, — I send you the two photo- 
graphs I spoke of that you may see Boyd's Rembrandt 
effect with the little Kodak ; also, in a separate parcel, 
a magnesium light for photographing at night or on 
a dark day. You must hold the magnesium light, 
with its reflector, in your hand so as to throw the 
light on any object (including your father's foot, of 
course) or any part of the room you wish to show. 
. . . You light the end of the little magnesium 
ribbon that projects from the holder and ' play it 
out' by the crank as you want it. A very little 
will do for an instantaneous picture. 

" I am told that some people light the ivhole of 
the ribbon at once to get a stronger and more pro- 
tracted light. But as this is always accompanied 
by the sudden disappearance of the house and the 
spectators and the operator, and the calling out of 
the village fire-engine, perhaps you had better not 
try it. Your parents might object. And, for a 
young lady, it might seem somewhat ostentatious ! ! 
. . . — Yours very sincerely, Bret Harte." 

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LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

"The Red House, Camberley, Surrey, 
^^ December 8, 1899. 

" Dear Miss May, — The dovecot is finished and 
ready for your pigeons, and if you will kindly send me 
the pair you spoke of, ' The Red House ' will be de- 
lighted. Don't give yourself any trouble, for I shall be 
very glad to remit to you any disbursements you may 
have to make to others to enable the birds to travel 
comfortably, and as becomes their degree and con- 
dition as former tenants of Pye Corner. If there 
are any first-class pigeon tickets, take 'em ! I should 
not like them to mix with any ' tumblers ' or vulgar 
acrobatic foivls travelling ' on tour.' 

" Let me know when they leave and when they 
may be expected, and they shall be looked after at 
Camberley station. 

" I am here trying to get rid of a nasty cold 
which I set up in London after leaving Broadway. 
But the fog and gloom have followed me even to 
this Surrey hillside ! But I shall see that the 
pigeons are safely housed, unless — horrible thought ! 
— they should turn out to be carrier pigeons and 
calmly return to you. In which case I shall send 
all sorts of abusive messages stuck all over their 
wings ! 

" With love to all at Pye Corner. — Yours very 
sincerely, Bret Harte." 



324 



AND LATER WORK 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., March 17, 1899. 

" Dear Miss May, — Many thanks for the hand- 
some typewritten copy of ' Sue ' which your father 
had promised you should do for me. 

" Were you not alarmed at the ' prompt ' direc- 
tions, especially those cabalistic fractions about the 
' h, \ ' lights ? The ' blue in bunches ' and the ' whites 
slowly out ' are dreadfully creepy ! 

" By the way, have you photographed with your 
magnesium light ? I have bought one just like yours, 
but have not tried it yet. You might give me a hint 
if you have used yours. 

" I hope you have good news of your wandering 
parents in the North. Are they still ' on tour ' ? I 
am expecting to hear from your father in a day or 
two. I would have written to him, but I have 
been quite laid up with neuralgia. — Yours always 
sincerely, Bret Harte." 

"74 Lancaster Gate, W., December 28, 1899. 

" Dear Miss May, — I have just heard from ' The 
Bed House,' Camberley, that one of the male pigeons 
managed to squeeze himself through the wires while in 
temporary confinement and escaped, leaving his mate 
disconsolate. He is said to have lingered for some 
fifteen minutes over the place, in jeering or regretful 
contemplation of the others, and then apparently 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

steered his course to Worcestershire, and finally, Pye 
Corner. 

" Will you kindly keep a lookout at your own 
dovecot for the deserter ? You may be able to bring 
comfort to his abandoned mate and joy to the sor- 
rowing household at the Red House ; but I have 
my doubts ! It had the look of a premeditated de- 
sertion ! — Yours always sincerely, 

Bret Harte. 

" P.S. — If he should be so unprincipled a bird 
as to make his appearance at Pye Corner with 
another' mate, hoping you would not detect the dif- 
ference, don't be deceived ! The real victim is here. 

B. H." 

To a lady who greatly admired his works and 
who frequently wrote to him about them, he always 
replied at length. Indeed, as will be seen, he con- 
sulted her about books that he wanted to read. It 
was a curious episode in his experiences, for he and 
his gentle correspondent never met. 

" To Miss Jackson. 

" AvBRLEY Tower, Farnham, Surrey, 
^^ September 6, 1898. 

" Dear Miss Jackson, — Your wonderful sym- 
pathy with rare books, and, perhaps more than all, 
your tireless good-nature to me, prompts me to ask 

you a real favour. 

326 



AND LATER WORK 

" I want to get a copy of Cobbett's ' Rural Rides.' 
I don't think Quaritch could help me as the book 
would seem to him vulgarly new, having been pub- 
lished in the earlier part of this century, and I should 
shrink from shocking the noble spirit of B. Q., and 
incurring a rebuff like that administered to Lord 
Ashburnham, I know Cobbett only vaguely, as a 
Reference of some kind, but he has written some 
descriptions of this locality — a locality which I have 
now known for three years as the most rural part 
of England — and I am told he has recorded his 
knowledge in the ' Rural Rides.' I have been de- 
pendent upon my ' White's Selborne ' for my infor- 
mation hitherto, but even that charming book does 
not entirely satisfy my cravings. 

" Perhaps it may be in that wonderful library of 
yours from which you dip out such prizes between 
your fingers. Perhaps you may know to whom I 
may apply for it. I have no knowledge of its size or 
value. I should like to purchase it, or, if necessary, 
borrow it ; while I might shrink, at first, from lar- 
cenous abstraction of it, or the necessary effacement 
of its owner, I can conceive of circumstances in which 
either of these suicide acts, or indeed hoth of them, 
might be consistent and justifiable. Far be it from 
me, however, to recommend such a course to any 
young lady who might not bring to the process 
that swiftness of locomotion or dexterity of arm 
necessary to its fullest execution — but I should ask 
no questions ! 

327 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

" If you had driven — as I did yesterday — over 
thirty-six miles of deUciously rural solitude, under 
a sun that has at last warmed up all England so 
that the balm of heather and pine absolutely quivered 
in the dazzling light of the moor ; or dived into the 
shadows of ' Alice Holt ' wood, which I think Shake- 
speare had in his mind when he drew the ' Forest of 
Arden,' then you would understand how I long for 
some information of what I saw. However, you 
have only your own good-nature to thank for my 
troubling you in this way so soon again. — Yours 
always sincerely, Bket Harte." 

" To Miss Jackson. 

" AvERLEY Tower, Farnham, Surrey, 
''Oct. 6, 1893. 

" Dear Miss Jackson, — I have just sent you, 
by parcel post, your big book on Surrey, with many, 
many thanks for the loan of it. I was loth to part 
with it, but it was rather large for my desk table 
here, and I did not dare to trust it out of my 
sight. 

" I have kept the ' Rural Rides,' as you probably 

hnoiv, but I will confess to you that I loathe it — 

which you dont know ! I got it solely as a protection 

from an acquaintance, who, whenever I asked for 

information regarding localities in this district always 

looked at me compassionately, and said, ' Ah, you 

should read Cobbett's " Rural Rides," — wonderful 

man ! — has ridden all over this district.' That is 

328 




lo £ ^- 



AND LATER WORK 

how I got landed among ' Swedes ' and political 
meetings in low ' pot-houses,' and dissertations upon 
' paper money,' and the number of bushels of corn 
per case — and, worst of all, abuse of my pet tree — 
the pine ! under the title of ' beggarly firs ' ! But 
I have ' crammed ' myself out of it with things I 
don't want to know, just to revenge myself on my 
acquaintance (who I shrewdly suspect never read the 
book), and be able to meet him with uninteresting 
facts. 

" I should have told you this before, but I have 
been laid by the heels here with a horrible complaint 
called ' lumbago,' which prevents my standing upright 
before the meanest of my species, and makes me 
go doddering round from room to room like the old 
stage peasant who is visiting the scenes of his child- 
hood, and twinges me as I bend over my desk. But 
if I don't enjoy the ' Bural Bides ' for itself, I enjoy 
the revenge it gives me, and I thank you heartily 
for helping me to it. — Yours very sincerely, 

Bret Harte." 
"To Miss Jackson. 

" The Red House, Camberley, Surrey, 
'^ April 6, 1899. 

" Dear Miss Jackson, — I was kept in town, 
and so spent the usual empty London Easter Holiday, 
while it might have been greatly relieved by your 
pleasant Easter offerings, which, however, I did not 
find until I arrived here yesterday. So I had them 
awaiting me with the daffodils and the sunshine. 

329 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

" I must confess to you that while I shall read 
and value the ' Holy War,' I never, as a boy, was 
able to take John Bunyan seriously. The ' Pilgrim's 
Progress ' affected me very much in the same way 
as the converted Africans or Indians who were intro- 
duced to me at Sunday School by their missionary 
showmen, and who talked ' baboon ' or ' pigeon ' 
English. I don't think that I, or any other bad 
boy, was ever convinced by personified Vices or 
Virtues, or even regarded them as anything but 
amusing wax figures. I know I used to roar with 
laughter over ' Mr. Facing-both-ways ' and ' Mr. By- 
Ends,' to the great detriment of my spiritual educa- 
tion. It seemed to me an insult to my intelligence 
— you know how sensitive a boy's intelligence is — and 
how so many good, moral people persistently overlook 
it, and make their young friends regard them as 
unbounded liars ! — and I would have none of it. 
When will people learn that Allegory is a dissipation 
,3 for the mature intellect, and not to be given to babes 
and sucklings ? 

" I am afraid that John Bunyan became to me a 
kind of antiquated ' Stiggins.' 

" But this is not pretty Easter talk, and I don't 
know how I dropped into it, with all this sunshine 
about me on the Surrey hills. I only intended to 
thank you most sincerely for your charming gifts. 
— Yours always sincerely, Bret Harte." 

In the next letter he refers to a visit to my 

330 



AND LATER WORK 

home. How well I remember walking with him 
and interrupting his conversation to beg him to look 
at that red-berried and frost-bedizened holly bush. 
Little did I think then how minutely and beauti- 
fully he meant to describe it. Indeed at the 
time he seemed to take little or no notice of it, 
and asked me laughingly if that was one of the 
" great sights " of a Cotswold village. In this way 
he (unknown to others) observed things, and from 
them limned delicate cabinet pictures. 

" To Miss Jackson. 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
"Nov. 25, 1899. 

"Dear Miss Jackson, — I know you are long- 
suffering and forgiving, and I suppose that is the 
reason why I impose on your kindness, and haven't 
answered your last letter before. To simply say I 
have been very busy, and twice very far from London, 
since I received it, is some sort of explanation, but no 
excuse, so I throw myself on your mercy. 

" I may not talk about the beautiful flowers you 
sent me, but I enjoyed them all the same. And I may 
tell you that in connection with them, and other things 
' that pretty bin,' I thought how you would have 
enjoyed a charming Christmas card I saw the other 
morning — painted freshly by Nature. It was a 
frosty morning in Worcestershire (a sudden drop of 
the thermometer in the night to eight degrees of 
frost) — a bush of broad-leaved holly which stood by 

331 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

the wall of an old house, and was already brilliant 
with its berries, had each leaf exquisitely frosted at 
its outer edge, as if trimmed with delicate white lace. 
The shining green of the leaf itself was undisturbed — 
only the spiny edges were touched with the rime, and 
each leaf was in itself a marvel of symmetrical out- 
lining. The stone-wall background was of that 
neutral tint which old stone takes on through age 
and weather in that district, and which is a little 
apt to make all colour glaring by too great relief, 
but it was wonderful how the red berries were brought 
into perfect harmony with the wall and the leaf by 
this one graceful touch of frost. I was wrong to say 
it was like lace, nor would silver describe it, for it had 
the faintest sparkle of crystal in its dead white colour. 
It made a picture where it stood, while it made the 
whole foggy, india-ink-washed landscape gracious. 

" I ought to say that it kept me from writing to 
you ; but it didn't, and I scorn the excuse. But I 
know you would have forgiven me if you could have 
seen it ; it was impossible to be anything but good in 
its presence, and perhaps my telling you about it may 
do something to condone the negligence of, yours very 
sincerely, Bret Harte." 

"To Miss Jackson. 

" 74 Lancaster Gate, W., 
" April 2, 1900. 

"Dear Miss Jackson, — I will not say that I 
sacredly promised my mother that I would never, never 



AND LATER WORK 

send a post-card to a lady, for post-cards weren't 
invented in her day, and perhaps she knew the folly 
of asking me to promise anything, and I don't think 
you'd believe in me anyway, but I ivill say that I 
have never sent one, and should as soon think of 
shouting to you in the street as of taking the General 
Post-office into my confidence with you. Wherefore 
have I placed your very pretty blue card with its 
complemental pink stamp on my shelf with your books, 
where it shall remain pure and undefiled, while I take 
my usual white sheet of note-paper to convey to you 
that my address will be here until Thursday, and 
afterwards at the Ked House, Camberley, for a few 
weeks. 

" Now you will please forgive me for again break- 
ing your rules and express commands in my usual 
selfish way, and let me thank you in advance for the 
violets, though I don't deserve 'em, I know. — Yours 
always sincerely, Bret Harte." 

He was very fond of his comparison between the 
man who sent him a post-card, and the man who would 
offend him by shouting at him across a street, though 
I think the shouting existed only in his fertile imagina- 
tion. But he made me give up sending him that 
convenient form of message. Everything that left 
his desk had to be finished in a way that satisfied 
him, and he expected others to take the same pains 
with their correspondence. 

It was so with everything he undertook. When 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

the proprietors of Munsey's Magazine asked him to 
write an article on his favourite novehst and his best 
book, he explained in the most elaborate way why- 
Alexandre Dumas's famous romance of " Monte Cristo " 
— \was the novel he placed first, and showed very clearly 
the reasons for its hold upon the readers of three 
generations. When the editor of The Idler requested 
a confession concerning his first book, he responded in 
no perfunctory or egotistical way but wrote a really 
amusing article explaining his "first book" was not 
his own but a volume of Californian Verse that under 
the most extraordinary and troubled conditions he col- 
lected and edited for others. A perfect epitome of 
the wise, witty, and tender sayings he scattered broad- 
cast through his works is to be found in the "Bret 
Harte Birthday Book," carefully and very tastefully 
compiled by Madame Van de Velde. 

During the later years of his life he manifestly 
sought retirement. Society saw little of him ; and to 
clubland he was almost lost. The Beefsteak, the 
Babelais, the Kinsmen, and other unique coteries 
missed his welcome presence and clever talk. Indeed 
the Boyal Thames Yacht Club, of which he was a 
member, became his favourite resort when he wanted 
any distraction from his own home. This selection 
seemed to me so odd — for he had no love of yachting — 
that I questioned him concerning it. " Why, my 
dear fellow," he said, " don't you see ? I never use 
a club until I am tired of my work and want relief 
from it. If I go to a literary club I am asked 

334 



AND LATER WORK 

all sorts of questions as to what I am doing, and 
my views on somebody's last book, and to these 
I am expected to reply at length. Now my good 
friends in Albemarle Street talk of their yachts, 
don't want my advice about them, are good enough 
to let me listen, and I come away refreshed by their 
conversation." 

But to his old and close friends he was ever the 
same fascinating, affectionate, and lovable comrade. 
It is good now to think of the pleasant peaceful days 
he enjoyed in his favourite English counties. At 
the pretty village of Headley in Hampshire, and at 
Camberley in Surrey, he spent happy summers delight- 
ing in his surroundings, and declaring that the spice- 
scents of the pine trees that crested the hills carried 
him back to early Californian days. 

To be with him in the country was no ordinary 
treat. In all its aspects he loved nature, and, though 
he held quaint theories about them, he had a winsome 
love for dumb animals. 

" Just look at that," he said to me as in a country 
lane we saw a donkey absolutely and hopelessly 
declining to drag a small load up a slight hill ; " they 
say a donkey is the prototype of a fool, but I tell you 
he has more common-sense than any animal I know. 
That donkey really knows what he wants, and he is 
going to have his own wayT And he did ! " Now," 
he said, continuing the talk, " the horse is always de- 
scribed as a noble animal. Compare him with his 
humble friend the donkey, and he is an idiot. He 



LATER DAYS, LATER FRIENDS 

has ten times his strength, and more than ten times 
the strength of a man, and yet he allows himself to 
be saddled and harnessed, bitted and spurred, ridden 
and driven, lashed and exhausted, until he becomes 
a mere bundle of trembling sweating nerves. I take 
off my hat to the self- insisting and determined 
donkey." I regret to say that, continuing the argu- 
ment, he said laughingly, " If you come to think of it 
my appreciation of the donkey race is not misplaced. 
Are they not like the enduring yet self-willed women 
of our creation, while we poor harassed men are like 
those imbecile neurotic horses? I wonder whether 
you and I are ' noble animals ' ? I wonder if the 
horse likes to think he's called that way ? I wonder 
if the donkey plumes itself on the complete success of 
its alleged folly ? " 

He was very fond of dogs, and used to say 
they appealed to him because of " their pathetic 
and evident consciousness of their own uselessness." 
Bird-life had a great charm for him, and he was 
always happy when he chatted with Mr. J. E. 
Harting, whose "Ornithology of Shakespeare" was 
one of his pet handbooks. 

But he incessantly worked, and I think he en- 
joyed writing that second series of " Condensed 
Novels" which, in their collected form, were 
published after his death, and received with a 
chorus of praise. At the time he was conscious of 
failing health, but he wrote these delightful parodies 
in hearty spirits, and in his truest vein of fun. It 

33^ 



AND LATER WORKS 

is curious that he should have brought his hterary 
career to a close by triumphantly repeating one 
of his earliest successes. And yet as we laugh over 
these clever pages we understand what poor Tom 
Robertson, the dramatist, felt when he , wrote of 
his dead friend Artemus Ward, one of the first 
American humorists to make a name on these 
shores : — " It seems so strange that the hand that 
traced the jokes should be cold, that the tongue 
that trolled out the good things should be silent ; 
that the jokes and the good things should remain, 
and the man who made them should be gone for 
ever." 



337 



CHAPTER IX 

"CROSSING THE BAR" 

Although we all knew that he was more or less 
ailing, it was not until the early months of 1902 
that the condition of Bret Harte's health caused 
serious anxiety to his friends. Hoping to benefit 
by fresh air and sunshine he went to stay with 
his ever sympathetic friend, Madame Van de Velde, 
^3 at Camberley. But it was a cold, sunless, and dis- 
appointing spring, and the ordinary charms of his 
well-loved Surrey were denied to him. Work became 
more and more difficult to him, but he could still 
be jocular even about his health torments. He and 
I were once more engaged on a play, and no one 
would think from the letters he constantly wrote 
me that he was either in pain or in doubt about 
himself 

In March he submitted to an operation for the 
throat trouble that was at the root of his ever 
increasing illness, but even after the pain and the 
misery of it he wrote to me (inter alia) — " Tell 
your medical student son that the operation and 
the instrument were so fascinating that they de- 
lighted even the victim ! " 

But the operation only served to stave off an 

33^ 



"CROSSING THE BAR " 

inevitable end, and in spite of his affected high 
spirits, I think he knew it. 

And yet, notwithstanding the depression that 
must now have ahnost crushed him, and the pain 
from which he undoubtedly suffered, he still tried 
to write. He had been greatly pleased by the 
reception given to one of his most recent stories, 
in which his old friend Colonel Starbottle figures 
at his very best, and in response to an earnest 
and gratifying request he resolved to show that 
redoubtable creature in a new light. 

On April 17th, saying he felt better, he sat 
down to his desk to write his new tale. Com- 
mencing in his usual painstaking way, and re- 
jecting one beginning for another, he composed the 
lines that I now reproduce in facsimile on the next 
page. It was the last, and, alas ! the shortest 
of his " short stories." He never did any more. 
Nothing more — except to write occasional letters 
to his friends. I have a note from him bearing 
later date in which, after touching on other matters, 
he spoke with infinite good-humour and yet rather 
plaintively of his health troubles. 

To the last he was kindly — and that is only 
to say, like himself One of the horrors of his 
existence was the omnipresent autograph hunter. 
For a young lady of my household, to whom he could 
not well say no, he signed his name in her trouble- 
some friend's still more troublesome birthday book, 
saying, " Tell that young woman I hate, loathe, 

339 



"CROSSING THE BAR" 

and despise her." It was in his failing hours that 
a letter came making a somewhat similar request 

^J^from a member of President Koosevelt's family. 
At the moment he condemned it, with the scores 
of such applications he received, to the wastepaper 
basket, and then he said — " No ! that may be from 
a child. I'll send my signature." 

On May 5 th, with terrible and unexpected 
rapidity, the sad end came. By the expert doctors 
who attended him it had not been wholly unfore- 
seen ; but for those who were with him at the time 
it was beyond all description distressing. He had 
risen at his usual hour, and there was nothing in 
his appearance or manner to indicate that the end 
was so near. He was sitting at his writing-table 
when an alarming attack of hemorrhage gave the 
sad warning note. He went to his bedroom, and 
medical aid was quickly at hand. Although much 
weakened he rallied, and it was not until late in 
the afternoon that a second attack rendered him 
partially unconscious, and he passed peacefully 
away in the presence of his dear friend Madame 

— ^Van de Yelde and her attendants. 

In accordance with his well-known views on such 
subjects the funeral was a very simple one. Among 
the few who followed him to his ivy-lined grave were 
Mrs. Bret Harte, his son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and \ 
f Mrs. Francis King Harte, his daughter, Miss Ethel i 
) Harte, Madame Van de Velde, Colonel Collins, Mr. A. S.( 



V 



Boyd, and a small cluster of grief-stricken friends. 

340 



"CROSSING THE BAR" 

And so he lies in quiet Frimley churchyard, 
within sound of the rustHng pine-trees, and in the 
heart of a country he knew and loved well. His 
quiet graveside has already drawn many pilgrims, 
and it may confidently be predicted that as the years 
roll by their number will increase. 

Of the universal sorrow with which the news of 
his death was received I need not speak, though from 
one or two letters it seems only right that I should 
quote. 

Miss Mary C Froude said : — 

" His friends all loved him. I loved him very 
much, and greatly because he was such a true friend 
of my father's. He was also more than kind to me, 
and I always reverenced his high-minded generous 
self, and his utter aloofness from aught mean or nasty, 
for all that he was a man of the world, and knew life 
under all aspects." 

The Marquis of Northampton wrote : — 

" I cannot in words say how sad I am and how 
terribly I feel the loss of my good friend. I not 
only loved him, but I respected him and long to let 
the world know what he really was — very human but 
with such noble intentions and feelings. He always 
did me good, and I shall miss him much." 

Among the obituary notices that deeply touched 
his English friends were those signed by Mr. Theodore 
Watts-Dunton, Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, Mr. G. B. 
Burgin, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, and, from over the 
seas, by Mr. Noah Brooks and Mr. Joaquin Miller. 

341 



'CROSSING THE BAR" 

When it was known that I had undertaken this 
work I had many kindly letters from his distinguished 
friends in America. 

Colonel John Hay wrote : — 

" I shall look forward with much pleasurable 
anticipation to reading your life of our dear friend, 
who will always be one of the most attractive and 
charming figures of the nineteenth century. . . . 
Bret Harte was one of my dear and honoured friends. 
His gentle and amiable personality endeared him to 
all who were admitted to the privilege of his intimacy ; 
his great achievements in literature made his fame a 
substantial national possession. My attachment to 
him as a friend, my pride in him as a great American, 
alike make it impossible for me to write about him in 
the hurry which is my fate." 

" I am glad," said my kind friend Mr. William 
Winter, " that you will write the Life of Bret Harte. 
I knew how you would feel about his death. We 
have lost the Prince of our profession, the representa- 
tive man of letters. His genius was no less original 
than fine ; he was a master at once of pathos and 
humour ; and his sense of character was extraordinary. 
He drew from life, but he was an artist, not a copyist. 
Within his peculiar field he was as distinctive as 
Edgar Poe, and within that field he had no 
rival." 

And Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, to whom I 
owe much, said : — 

" I shall be glad to have my name associated with 

342 



\ 




\t 



M* 











CKOSSING THE BAR'' 

his in your book, for he made me what I am, and I 
owe all to him." 

A French appreciation of him from the gifted pen 
ot Madame Marie Anne de Bovet (the Marquise de 
Boishebert) is soon to appear. The lady knew him 
well, and has the highest admiration for his genius. 

It is easier to begin than to finish a book in which 
each line is written under the consciousness of a deep 
personal sorrow. As he approaches the conclusion of 
his task, the anxious writer must ask himself if he has 
done even scant justice to a subject very near his 
heart. As far as in me lies I have endeavoured, 
through his stories, and all that in happy hours he 
told me about them and his experiences, to let Bret 
Harte tell the history of his life, and in his own 
eloquent words, rather than my halting ones, I will 
end. 

He left on record the motives that inspired his 
work, and he was never more earnest than when 
defending himself he wrote : — 

" He has been repeatedly cautioned, kindly and 
unkindly, intelligently and unintelligently, against 
his alleged tendency to confuse recognised standards 
of morality by extenuating lives of recklessness, and 
often criminality, with a single solitary virtue. He 
might easily show that he has never written a sermon, 
that he has never moralised or commented upon the 
actions of his heroes, that he has never voiced a creed 
or obtrusively demonstrated an ethical opinion. He 
might easily allege that this merciful effect of his art 

343 



"CROSSING THE BAR " 

arose from the reader's weak human sympathies, and 
holds himself irresponsible. But he would be conscious 
of a more miserable weakness in thus divorcing himself 
from his fellowmen who in the domain of art must ever 
walk hand-in-hand with him. So he prefers to say that 
of all the various forms in which Cant presents itself 
to suffering humanity, he knows of none so outrageous, 
so illogical, so undemonstrable, so marvellously absurd 
as the Cant of ' Too Much Mercy.' When it shall be 
proven to him that communities are degraded and 
brought to guilt and crime, suffering or destitution, 
from a predominance of this quality ; when he shall 
see pardoned ticket- of-leave men elbowing men of 
austere lives out of situation and position, and the 
repentant Magdalen supplanting the blameless virgin 
in society, then he will lay aside his pen and extend 
his hand to the new Draconian discipline in fiction. 
But until then he will, without claiming to be a 
religious man or a moralist, but simply as an artist, 
reverently and humbly conform to the rules laid down 
by a Great Poet, who created the parable of the 
' Prodigal Son ' and the ' Good Samaritan ' — whose 
works have lasted eighteen hundred years, and will 
remain when the present writer and his generation 
are forgotten. And he is conscious of uttering no 
original doctrine in this, but of only voicing the 
beliefs of a few of his literary brethren happily living, 
and one gloriously dead, who never made proclamation 
of this ' from the housetops.' " 

The last time Bret Harte stayed in my house he 

344 



"CROSSING THE BAR" 

left one of his penholders on my desk, " to use when 
he came again." With a sad heart I take it up now to 
copy his beautiful verses " On a Pen of Thomas Starr 
King." When he wrote them, nearly forty years 
ago, he little thought how wonderfully they would 
apply to himself when he, too, had "crossed the bar." 

" This is the reed the dead musician dropped, 

With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden ; 
The prompt allegro of its music stopped, 
Its melodies unbidden. 

But who shall finish the unfinished strain, 
Or wake the instrument to awe or wonder, 

And bid the slender barrel breathe again, 
An organ-pipe of thunder ! 

His pen ! what humbler memories cling about 

Its golden curves ! What shapes and laughing graces 

Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out 
In smiles and courtly phrases ? 

The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung ; 

The word of cheer with recognition in it ; 
The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung 

The golden gift within it. 

But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave : 
No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision : 

The incantation that its power gave 
Sleeps with the dead magician." 



345 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Setting far less value on his works than that accorded to them 
by his readers, Bret Harte kept no record of them, and I have 
therefore found it impossible to add dates to the great majority of 
those here enumerated. Probably there are some items that he had 
forgotten, but when, at his wish, I (a few years ago) wrote out the 
greater part of the list, he told me he believed it to be exhaustive. 
There are several other plays that he wrote in collaboration with me, 
but as these have so far been neither produced nor published, I have 
not included them. 

I regret that I am unable to give the names of his American 
publishers, or, with a few exceptions, the dates when his poems and 
stories first appeared in his own country. 

T. Edgar Pemberton. 

POEMS AND DRAMA 

NATIONAL POEMS 



John Burns of Gettysburg. 

" How are you, Sanitary? " 

Battle Bunny (Malvern Hill, 
1864). 

The Reveille. 

Our Privilege. 

Relieving Guard (T. S. K., obit. 
4th March 1864). 

The Goddess. 

On a Pen of Thomas Starr King. 

A Second Review of the Grand 
Army. 

The Copperhead (1864). 

A Sanitary Message. 

The Old Major Explains (Re- 
union, Army of the Potomac, 
12th May 187 1 ). 



California's Greeting to Seward 
(1869). 

The Aged Stranger. 

The Idyl of Battle Hollow (War 
of the Rebellion, 1864). 

Caldwell of Springfield (New 
Jersey, 1780). 

Poem (Delivered on the Fourteenth 
Anniversary of California's Ad- 
mission into the Union, 9th 
September 1864). 

Miss Blanche Says. 

An Arctic Vision. 

St. Thomas (A Geographical Sur- 
vey, 1868). 

OfiF Scarborough (September 
1779)- 



346 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



SPANISH IDYLS AND LEGENDS 



The Miracle of Padre Junipero. 

The Wonderful Spring of San 
Joaquin. 

The Angelus (Heard at the Mis- 
sion Dolores, 1868), 

Concepcion de Arguello (Presidio 
de San Francisco, 1800). 

" For the King " (Northern 
Mexico, 1640). 



Ramon. 

Don Diego of the South (Re- 
fectory, Mission San Gabriel, 
1869). 

At the Hacienda. 

Friar Pedro's Ride. 

In the Mission Garden (1865). 

The Lost Galleon, 



POEMS IN DIALECT 



" Jim." 
Chiquita. 

Dow's Flat (1856). 
In the Tunnel. 
" Cicely." 

Penelope (Simpson's Bar, 1858). 
Plain Language from Truthful 
James (Table Mountain, 1870). 
The Society upon the Stanislaus. 
Luke (in the Colorado Park, 

1873)- 
" The Babes in the Wood " (Big 

Pine Flat, 187 1). 
The Latest Chinese Outrage. 
Truthful James to the Editor 

(Yreka, 1873). 



An Idyl of the Road (Sierras, 

1876). 
Thompson of Angel's. 
The Hawk's Nest. 
Her Letter. 

His Answer to " Her Letter." 
The Return of Belisarius (Mud 

Flat, i860). 
Further Language from Truthful 

James (Nye's Ford, Stanislaus, 

1870). 
After the Accident. 
The Ghost that Jim Saw. 
" Seventy-Nine." 
The Stage-Driver's Story. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



A Greyport Legend (1797). 

A Newport Romance. 

San Francisco (From the Sea). 

The Mountain Heart's-Ease. 

Grizzly. 

Madrono. 



Coyote. 

To a Sea Bird (Santa Cruz, 

1869). 
What the Chimney Sang. 
Dickens in Camp. 
"Twenty Years." 



347 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



MISCELLANEOUS FO^US— continued 



Fate. 

Grandmother Tenderden (Massa- 
chusetts Shore, 1800). 

Guild's Signal. 

Aspiring Miss De Laine (A 
Chemical Narrative). 

A Legend of Cologne. 

The Tale of a Pony. 

On a Cone of the Big Trees. 

Lone Mountain (Cemetery, San 
Francisco). 

Alnaschar. 



The Two Ships. 

Address (Delivered at the Open- 
ing of the California Theatre, 
San Francisco, 19th January 
1870). 

Dolly Varden, 

Telemachus versus Mentor. 

What the Wolf really said to 
Little Red-Riding Hood. 

Half-an-Hour Before Supper. 

What the Bullet Sang. 

Cadet Grey. 



PARODIES, &c. 



Before the Curtain. 

To the Pliocene Skull (A Geo- 
logical Address). 

The Ballad of Mr. Cook (A Legend 
of the Cliff House, San Fran- 
cisco). 

The Ballad of the Emeu. 

Mrs. Judge Jenkins (Being the 
only genuine Sequel to Maud 
MuUer). 

A Geological Madrigal. 

Avitor (An Aerial Retro- 
spect). 



The Willows (After Edgar Allan 
Poe). 

North Beach (After Spenser). 

The Lost Tails of Miletus. 

The Ritualist (By a Communi- 
cant of St. James's). 

A Moral Vindicator. 

California Madrigal (On the Ap- 
proach of Spring). 

What the Engines Said (Opening 
of the Pacific Railroad). 

The Legends of the Rhine. 

Songs without Sense. 



LITTLE POSTERITY 



Master Johnny's Next - Door 

Neighbour. 
Miss Edith's Modest Request. 
Miss Edith Makes it Pleasant 

for Brother Jack. 



Miss Edith Makes another 

Friend. 
On the Landing (An Idyl of 

the Balusters). 



348 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



" Two Men of Sandy Bar." 
duced in America. 

" Sue " (Founded on " The Judg- 
ment of Bolinas Plain," in 
collaboration with T. Edgar 
Pemberton. Produced at Hoy t's 



DRAMA 
Pro 



Theatre, New York, on 15 th 
September 1896, and at the 
Garrick Theatre, London, loth 
June 1898). 

The Lord of Fontenelle " 
(Operetta). 



AMERICAN LEGENDS, &c. 
PROSE— EARLIER PAPERS 



Mliss. 

High- Water Mark. 

A Lonely Ride. 



The Man of No Account. 
Notes by Flood and Field. 
Waiting for the Ship. 



THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP AND OTHER SKETCHES 

Tennessee's Partner. 



The Luck of Roaring Camp. 
The Outcasts of Poker Flat. 
Miggles. 



The Idyl of Red Gulch. 
Brown of Calaveras. 



BOHEMIAN PAPERS 



Melons. 

A Venerable Impostor. 

A Boy's Dog. 

Surprising Adventures of Master 

Charles Summer ton. 
The Mission Dolores. 
Boonder. 
From a Balcony. 
John Chinaman. 



On a Vulgar Little Boy. 
From a Back Window. 
Sidewalkings. 
Charitable Reminiscences. 
Seeing the Steamer off. 
Neighbourhoods I have Moved 

From. 
My Suburban Residence. 
The Ruins of San Francisco. 



SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS 

The Ogress of Silver Land. 
The Little Drummer, or 

Christmas Gift that came 

Rupert. 



The Legend of Monte del Diablo. 
The Right Eye of the Commander. 
The Legend of Devil's Point. 
The Adventure of Padre Vincentio. 
The Devil and the Broker. 



the 
to 



349 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS 



The Iliad of Sandy Bar. 

Mr. Thompson's Prodigal. 

The Romance of Madrono Hollow. 

The Poet of Sierra Flat. 

The Princess Bob and her Friends. 

How Santa Glaus came to Simp- 
son's Bar. 

Mrs. Skagg's Husbands. 

An Episode of Fiddletown. 

A Passage in the Life of Mr. John 
Oakhurst. 

The Rose of Tuolumne. 

A Monte Flat Pastoral. 



Baby Sylvester. 
Wan Lee, the Pagan. 
An Heiress of Red Dog. 
The Man on the Beach. 
Roger Gatron's Friend. 
" Jinny." 

Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 
"Who was My Quiet Friend?" 
A Tourist from Injianny. 
The Fool of Five Forks. 
The Man from Solano. 
A Ghost of the Sierras. 



EASTERN SKETGHES 



Views from a German Spion. 
Peter Schroeder. 
Morning on the Avenues. 
My Friend the Tramp. 
A Sleeping-Gar Experience. 



The Man Whose Yoke was not 

Easy. 
The Office-Seeker. 
With the Entries. 



GABRIEL GONROY 
A Novel in Seven Books. 



STORIES 



The Story of a Mine. 
Thankful Blossom : A Romance 
of the Jerseys (1779). 



The Twins of Table Mountain. 
Jeff Brigg's Love Story, 



GONDENSED NOVELS 



Muck-a-Muck : A Modern Indian 

Novel (After Gooper). 
Selina Sedilia. By Miss E. 

B — dd and Mrs. H — n — y 

W— d. 



The Ninety-Nine Guardsmen. 

By Al — X — d — r D — m — s. 
Miss Mix. By Gh— 1— tte 

Br— nt^. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CONDENSED 'NOY^LS— continued 



Mr. Midshipman Breezy : A Naval 

Officer. By Captain M — rry — t, 

R.N. 
Guy Heavystone ; or, Entire : 

A Muscular Novel. By the 

Author of " Sword and 

Gun." 
John .Jenkins; or, The Smoker 

Reformed. By T. S. A— th— r. 
Fantine. After the French of 

Victor Hugo. 
La Femme. After the French of 

M. Michelet. 
The Dweller of the Threshold. 

By Sir Ed— d L— tt^n 

B— 1— wr. 



N N. Being a Novel in the 
French Paragraphic Style. 

No Title. By W— Ik— e 
C— 11— ns. 

Handsome is as Handsome Does. 
By Ch— 3 R— de. 

Lothaw; or, The Adventures of 
a Young Gentleman in Search 
of "Religion." By Mr. Ben- 
jamins. 

The Haunted Man : A Christmas 
Story. By Ch— s D— ck— ns. 

The Hoodlum Band; or, The 
Boy Chief, the Infant Politi- 
cian, and the Pirate Prodigy. 



TALES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE 



Flip. 

Maruja. 

A Waif of the Plains. 

A Phyllis of the Sierras. 

Found at Blazing Star. 

A Drift from Redwood Camp. 

A Gentleman of La Porte. 

A Ward of the Golden Gate. 

A Sappho of Green Springs. 

The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge. 

Through the Santa Clara Wheat. 



A Maecenas of the Pacific Slope. 
Colonel Starbottle's Client. 
The Postmistress of Laurel Run. 
A Night at " Hay's." 
Johnson's " Old Woman." 
The New Assistant at Pine Clear- 
ing School. 
In a Pioneer Restaurant. 
A Treasure of the Galleon. 
The Ghosts of Stukeley Castle. 
The Great Deadwood Mystery. 



TALES OF THE PINE AND CYPRESS 



Snow-Bound at Eagle's. 

Susy. 

Sally Dows. 

The Conspiracy of Mrs. Bunker. 



The Transformation of Buckeye 

Camj:). 
Their Uncle from California. 



351 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BUCKEYE AND CHAPPARAL 



A Prot^g^ of Jack Hamlin's. 
An Ingenue of the Sierras. 
The Reformation of James Reddy. 
The Heir of the M'Hulishes. 
An Episode of West Woodlands. 
The Mystery of the Hacienda. 
The Bell-Ringer of Angel's. 



Johnnyboy. 

Young Robin Gray. 

The Sheriff of Siskyou. 

A Rose of Glenbogie. 

The Home-Coming of Jim Wilkes. 

" Chu-Chu ! " 



TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN 



Barker's Luck. 

A Yellow Dog. 

A Mother of Five. 

Bulger's Reputation. 

In the Tules. 

A Convert of the Mission. 

The Indiscretion of Elsbeth. 

The Devotion of Enriquez. 

A Millionnaire of Rough & Ready. 



The Ancestors of Peter Atherly. 

Two Americans. 

The Judgment of Bolinas Plain. 

The Strange Experience of Alkali 
Dick. 

A Night on the Divide. 

The Youngest Prospector in Cala- 
veras. 

A Tale of Three Truants. 



STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW 



" Unser Karl." 

Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy. 

See Yup. 

The Desborough Connections. 



Salomy Jane's Kiss. 

The Man and the Mountain. 

The Passing of Enriquez. 



MR. JACK HAMLIN'S MEDIATION, AND OTHER 
STORIES 



Mr. Jack Hamlin's Media- 
tion. 

The Man at the Semaphore. 

An Esmerelda of Rocky Canon. 

Dick Spindler's Family Christ- 
mas. 



When the Waters were up at 
" Jules." 

The Boom in the Calaveras Cla- 
rion. 

The Secret of Sobriente's Well. 

Liberty Jones's Discovery. 



ZS'^ 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



FROM SAND-HILL TO PINE 



A Niece of " Snapshot Harry's.' 
What Happened at the Fonda. 
A Jack and Jill of the Sierras. 
A Belle of Canada City. 



A Treasure of the Redwoods. 
Mr. Bilson's Housekeeper. 
How I Went to the Mines. 



UNDER THE REDWOODS 



Jimmy's Big Brother from Cali- 
fornia. 
The Youngest Miss Piper. 
A Widow of the Santa Ana Valley. 
The Mermaid of Lighthouse Point. 
Under the Eaves. 



How Reuben Allen saw Life in 

San Francisco. 
Three Vagabonds of Trinidad. 
A Vision of the Fountain. 
A Romance of the Line. 
Bohemian Days in San Francisco. 



ON THE OLD TRAIL 



A Mercury of the Foothills. 
Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff. 
The Landlord of the Big Flume 

Hotel. 
A Buckeye Hollow Inheritance. 



The Re-incarnation of Smith. 
Lanty Foster's Mistake. 
An Ali Baba of the Sierras. 
Miss Peggy's Proteges. 
The Goddess of Excelsior. 



CONDENSED NOVELS 



New Bxi,rlesques\ 



Rupert the Resembler. By 

A — th — y H — pe. 
The Stolen Cigar Case. By 

A. C— n— n D— le. 
GoUy and the Christian ; or, The 

Minx and the Manxman. By 

H—ll C— ne. 
The Adventures of John Long- 

bowe, Yoeman. Compiled from 

several eminent sources. 



Dan'l Borem. By E. N— s— 

W— t— t. 
Stories Three — 

For Simla Reasons. 

A Private's Honour. 

Jungle Folk. By R— dy— d 
K-pl-g. 
"Zut-Ski." By M— r— e C — 

r— Hi. 



353 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



OTHER WORKS 



The Queen of the Pirate Isle. A 
Tale for Children. Illustrated 
by Kate Greenaway. 

Devil's Food. 

Clarence. 

In a Hollow of the Hills. 

Three Partners ; or, The Big- 
Strike on Heavy Tree Hill. 

At the Mission of San Carmel. 

A Blue Grass Penelope. 

Left out on Lone Star Mountain. 

The Argonauts of North Liberty. 

The Crusade of the Excelsior. 

Cressy. 

The Heritage of Deadlow Marsh. 

A First Family of Tasajara. 



Drift from Two Shores. 
In the Carquinez Woods. 
An Apostle of the Tules. 
Sarah Walker. 
A Ship of '49. 
■ Prosper 's Old Mother. 
A Pupil of Chestnut Ridge. 
A Ward of Colonel Starbottle's. 
Mr. M'Glowrie's Widow. 
Trent's Trust. 

Dick Boyle's Business Card. 
The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin. 
The Sword of Don Jose. 
Longfellow (A Tribute). 
William Francis Bartlett. Poem 
{In Memoriarii). 



LATER POEMS 



Artemis in Sierra. 

Jack of the Tules (Southern Cali- 
fornia). 

The Old Camp Fire. 

" Crotalus " (Rattlesnake Bar, 
Sierras). 

The Station - Master of Lone 
Prairie. 



By Pines and Tules 

The Mission Bells of Monterey. 
Her Last Letter (Being a Reply to 

" His Answer "). 
Lines to a Portrait (By a Superior 

Person). 
Old Time and New. 



Reported by Truthful Jaims 



The Spelling Bee at Angel's. 
A Question of Privilege. 



The Thought Reader of Angel's. 
Free Silver at Angel's. 



The Birds of Cirencester. 
What Miss Edith Saw from Her 
Window. 

354 



Little Posterity 

" Hasta Manana." 



INDEX 



Albany City, 2 j De Bovet, Madame Marie Anne, 

" Argonauts of '49, The," 38 I 343 

" Arsenical Spring of San Joaqnin, j Densmore, Mr., 80 



The," 155 
AihencBum, Tlie, 190 
" Autumn Musings," 6 

"Ballad of the Emeu, The," 57 
Barnes, George, y2> 
Barrett, Lawrence, 124 
Bartlett, William Francis, 306 
Black, William, 215, 216, 217, 218, 

2ig, 220, 221 

"Blue Grass Penelope, A," 275 
*' Bohemian Days in San Fran- 
cisco," 9 
Booth, Edwin, 294 
Boucicault, Dion, 261 
Boughton, G. H., R.A., 204 
Bourchier, Arthur, 274 
Boyd, Alexander Stuart, 242. 340 
Bronte, Miss Charlotte, 301 
Brooks, Noah, 79, So, 91, 107, 115, 

341 
" Buckeye and Chapparal," 298 
Burgin, G. B., 341 

Californian Gold Fields, the, 38 

" Californian, The," 72> 

Chappell, Miss, 318, 319, 320, 321 

Chesterton, G. K., 341 

" Clarence," 298 

Collins, Colonel Arthur, 279, 280, 

340 
"Condensed Novels," 75 
" Cressy," 298 
Crewe, the Earl of, 304 



Dickens, Charles, 161, 165 
"Dickens in Camp," 161 
"Dick's Song," 284 
" Drift of Red Wood Camp, A," 31 1 

" Father Pedro," 283 
Fremont, Mrs. General, 76 
" From Sand Hill to Pine," 298 
Froude, J. A., 181, 206 
Froude, Miss Mary C. 341 

"Gabriel Conroy," 124, 268, 298 
Gounod, Charles, 288 
Griswold, Miss, 279, 288 

Hare, John, 290, 342 
Harte, Bret : — 

Albany City, home of, in, 2 

Bartlett, William Francis, lines 
to, 307 

Birth of, I 

Book-reviewer, as a, 106 

Boyhood, delicate, i 

California, leaves San Francisco 
for, 37 

Californian, The, contributor to, 

72, 
Characters drawn from life by, 

98 
CoUaborateur, as a, 264, 266, 267, 

271 
Crefeld— 

Leaves America for, 1 5 1 
Life at, 161 



2SS 



INDEX 



Harte, Bret — 

Daily Neics article on, 1 1 7 
Death of, 340 
Dickens, Charles — 

Admiration for, 3 

At the grave of, 166 
Dramatist, as a, 257 
Drng store, assistant in a, 58 
Father, his, i, 9 
Favourite novel, his, 334 
Fresh work, 237 
Friends made in London, 213 
Froude, J. A., visits^ 180 
Glasgow — 

Consul at, 208 

Life in^ 212 
Goes west at the age of seven- 
teen, 9 
Goldfields, at the, 38 
Grave of, in Frimley Churchyard, 

341 
Kemble, Fiances Anne, friend- 
ship with, 126, 127, 128, 
129 
Lecturer, as a, 1 32 
Lectures at — 

Berkely Springs, 143 

England, principal towns of, 
190, 203 

Kansas, 140 

Leeds, 325 

Ottawa, 136 

St. Louis, 138 
Letters to — 

Black, William, 218 

Chappell, Miss, 318 

Collins, Colonel Arthur, 279, 
280 

Jackson, Miss, 326 

Pemberton, Miss May, 322, 

323^ 324, 325 
Pemberton, Mr. T. Edgar, 227, 

290, 316 
Pemberton, Mrs. T. Edgar, 

315, 316 



Harte, Bret — 

Letters to — 

Son, his (Francis King Harte), 

173 
Van de Velde, Madame, 239 
Watt, A. P., 310,311, 312,313. 

314 

Wife, his, 112, 133, 136, 140, 
143, 145, 168, 170, 180, 184, 
185, 186, 199, 201 
Letters, one of his last, 96 
Letters received from — 

Besant, Walter, 222 

Black, William, 219, 220 - 

Booth, Edwin, 294 

Froude, J. A., 224 

Hay, Colonel John, 222, 238 

Leighton, Lord, 207 

Lowell, J. R., 222, 223 

Robson, Stuart, 259 

Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 278 
Literary work, latest, 300 
Longfellow, tribute to, 228 
"Luck of Roaring Camp, The," 

favourable criticisms, 93 
Married in 1862, 70 
Messenger of the Adams Express 

Company, as a, 53 
Miner, as a, 53 
Musical criticism by, 1 87 
Overland Mon th hj, The, editor of, 82 
Pemberton, Mrs. T. Edgar, 288 
Printer, as a, 61 
San Francisco — 

Leaves for California, 37 

Life at, 18 

"Send off" from, 114 

Wanderings in, 13 
Schoolmaster, as a, 63 
Secretary at the San Francisco 

Mint, 114 
Switzerland, visits, 316 
Twain, Mark, first meeting with, 

73 
Verse, first volume of, 78 



2^S^ 



INDEX 



Harte, Francis King, 78, 340 | "Mission of San Carmel, At the," 

Harte, Miss Ethel, 340 ! 282 

Harte, Mrs. Bret, 340. See their , " Mliss," 264 

marriage, her letters, &c. ! " Monte Cristo,"' 334 



Harting, J. E., 336 
" Hasta Manana," 288 
Hatton, Joseph, 264, and on 
Hay, Colonel John, 321, 238, 342 
" Heathen Chinee, The," 107 
" H.M.S. Pinafore," 277 
Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, 68 
Hood, Tom, 152, 158, 159, 160 

" Iliad of Sandy Bar, The," 62 
" In the Tunnel," 99 

Jackson, Miss, 326, 327, 328, 329, 

330. 331, 332, 333, and on 
" Judgment of Bolinas Plain. The," 
269 

Kemble, Mrs. Frances Anne, 126, 

127, 128, 129 
Kilton, Frederic G., 163 
King, Clarence, 308 
King, Thomas Starr, 48, 76, 78 

Lawrence, J., 69 

Le Gallienne, Richard, 341 

Leighton, Sir Frederick K., 207 

" Lines in an Album," 309 

" Lord of Fontenelle, The," 284 

" Lost Galleon, The," 7 

" Luck of Roaring Camp, The," 86 

"Lullaby to a Child," 283 

" Maruja," 298 

"Miggles," 94 

Miller, Joaquin, 70, 81, 149, 165, 

267, 341 
" Miss Mix," 302 
" Mission Bells of Monterey, The," 

288 



Moor, Emmanuel, 284 
Morris, Miss Clare, 95 
Mulford, Prentice, 70, 7;^ 

"Neighbourhoods I have moved 

from," 75 
Northampton, the Marquis of, 303, 

341 

" On a Pen of Thomas Starr King," 

345 
" On the Old Trail," 298 
" Outcasts of Poker Flat, The," 94 

Overland Monthly, The, 82, 87 

Pembbrton, Miss May, 322, 323, 

324, 325 
Pemberton, Mrs. T. Edgar, 288, 

315 
Pemberton, T. Edgar, 267, 273, 

290? 314, 316 
Pettie, John, 311 

Reid, Sir Wemyss, 2 1 5 

" Relieving Guard," 78 

" Reveille, The," 76 

"Rise of the Short Story, The," 

298 
Robertson, Tom, 337 
Robson, Stuart, 124 
Roosevelt, President, 340 
Russell, Miss Annie, 270 

San Francisco, 9, 22, 30, 72 

" Scotch Lines to A.S.B.," 240 

"See Yup," 31 

" Selina Sedilia," loi 

" Serenade," 70 

" Shore and Sedge," 298 

" Some Later Verses," 321 

" Songs," 286 



357 



INDEX 



Spanish Californians, 5 1 

Stern, Leo, 288 

Stoddard, Charles Warren, 67, 69, 

73, 103, 113, 121, 342 
"Stories in Light and Shadow," 

298 
" Sue," 270 

Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 277, 278 
" Susy/' 298 

" Tales of the Pine and Cypress," 

298 
" Tales of Trail and Town," 298 
" Tennessee's Partner," 94 
" Thankful Blossom," 123 
Toole, J, L., 275, 277 
Trevelyan, Sir George, 276 



Twain, Mark, 70, 73, 75 
"Two Men of Sandy Bar," 257 

" Uncle Juba," 289 
"Unser Karl," 176 

Van de Velde, Madame, 214, 251, 
275, 296, 310. 334, 338, 340 

Ward, Artemus, 337 

Watt, A. P., 310, 311, 312,313, 314 

Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 341 

Webb, C. H., 73 

" What The Chimney Sang," 288 

Winter, William, 295, 342 

" Young Robin Gray," 242 
"Yuba Bill," 54 



THE END 



Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson b' Co. 
Edinburgh 6= London 



